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Ancient Classics for English Readers

EDITED BY THE

REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A.

(SUPPLEMENTARY SERIES)

DEMOSTHENES

«

CONTENTS OF THE SERIES.

HOMER : THE ILIAD, . .By the Editor.

HOMER: THE ODYSSEY. . . . By the Same.

HERODOTUS, ... By George C. Swayne, M.A.

CAESAR, .

. . . By Anthony Trollope.

VIRGIL,

. By the Editor.

HORACE,

AESCHYLUS,

. By Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B.

By the Right Rev. Bishop Copleston.

XENOPHON,

CICERO,

. By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D.

. By the Editor.

SOPHOCLES, ... By Clifton W. Collins, M.A.
PLINY, By A. Church, M.A., and W. J. Brodribb, M.A.

EURIPIDES, .

. . By William Bodham Donne.

JUVENAL, .

. . By Edward Walford, M.A.

ARISTOPHANES, . By the Editor.

HESIOD AND THEOGNIS, By the Rev. James Davies, M.A.
PLAUTUS AND TERENCE, ... By the Editor.
TACITUS . By William Bodham Donne.

LUCIAN,

. By the Editor.

PLATO, .

. By Clifton W. Collins, M.A.

THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY, . . .By Lord Neaves.

LIVY,

. By the Editor.

OVID, .

. By the Rev. A. Church, M.A.

CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, & PROPERTIUS, ByJ. Davies, M.A.

DEMOSTHENES, .

. By the Rev. W. J. Brodribb, M.A.

ARISTOTLE, .

. By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D.

THUCYDIDES, .

. By the Editor.

LUCRETIUS,

. . . By W. H. Mallock, M.A.

PINDAR,

. By the Rev. F. D. Morice. M.A

DEMOSTHENES

BY THE

REV. W. J. BRODRIBB, M.A.^

LATE FELLOW OF ST JOHN’S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE

SOSTOK COLLEGE LIBRABT

CHKSTJSUT HiEE,

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
I 8 9 8

NOTE.

For the extracts from the speeches of Demosthenes
given in this volume I am to a considerable extent
indebted to the scholarly version of the late Mr C. It.
Kennedy. For the famous speech on the Crown, I
have made occasional use of a translation recently
published by an eminent English lawyer, the Eight
Hon. Sir Eobert Collier. The same speech was, some
years ago, translated by Mr William Brandt, a scholar
of Oriel College, Oxford, whose premature death cut
short a life of great promise. His rendering of the
Greek orator is spirited and vigorous, and I wish to
express my obligations to it.

W. J. B.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION, .

CHAP. I. GREECE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY B.C.,
ii II. MACEDON AND PHILTP, ....
III. EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES,

IY. DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE,

V. EARLY SPEECHES OF DEMOSTHENES ON FOR¬
EIGN POLICY, .

VI. FIRST SPEECH OF DEMOSTHENES AGAINST
PHILIP — SPEECH FOR THE FREEDOM OF
THE PEOPLE OF RHODES, ....

VII. PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS— SPEECHES OF DEMOS¬
THENES ON BEHALF OF THE OLYNTHIANS,

VIII. DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS,

IX. PHILIP MASTER OF THERMOPYLAE AND OF
PHOCIS — PEACE BETWEEN HIM AND ATHENS
— COUNSEL OF DEMOSTHENES, .

X. DEMOSTHENES CONTINUES 1IIS SPEECHES

AGAINST PHILIP, .

XI. CH2ERONEIA — FALL OF GREECE, .

XII. CONTEST BETWEEN DEMOSTHENES AND

AESCHINES, .

XIII. LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES,

XIV. DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR,

CONCLUSION, . . ...

ii

n

PAGE

1

4

13

22

32

44

57

72

84

92

102

122

135

147

153

172

Map : Greece and its adjacent Islands.

DEMOSTHENES.

INTRODUCTION.

The familiar names of Demosthenes and Cicero will
always he linked together. They are specially repre¬
sentative names. The eloquence of the ancient world
seems to he summed up in them. There is a further
reason why we should think of them together. Both
attached themselves to a falling cause ; both had to go
into exile ; both had the satisfaction of being welcomed
back from exile ; both, finally, when all was lost, were
willing to die rather than survive their country’s dis-
grace. There is, indeed, a striking resemblance between
the lives and fortunes of the two men, and none of
Plutarch’s parallels is more appropriate than that in
which he has compared them.

The best and noblest eloquence must be the product
of earnest political conviction. Cicero clung to the
traditions of the old republic, and regarded the concen¬
tration of power in one man as equivalent to his
country’s degradation and fall. The Greek statesman
a.c.s.s. vol. iv.

A

2

DEMOSTHENES.

could not imagine a worse calamity than that Greece
should cease to exist as an aggregate of free, self-govern¬
ing communities, and become a dependency on a foreign
kingdom or empire. We cannot hut sympathise with
such a sentiment. It was a noble one, though at the
time it may have been becoming more and more in¬
capable of realisation, as indeed was the sincere belief
of some perfectly honest men who were politically
opposed to Demosthenes. The highest aspects of Greek
life, and its best influences on the civilisation of
the world, were intimately connected with Greece as
existing according to his conception of what she ought
to be. His eloquence is at its highest when he dwells
on her fixed resolution in past days to resist to the
death anything like foreign dictation or interference.
Greece, in his view, was nothing if she once brought
herself to endure it.

On the whole, perhaps the Greek was rather a
greater figure than the Roman orator. He was at least
more single-minded and courageous. His political
career was more dignified and consistent, and there were
fewer weak moments in his life. Cicero, it is true,
was a singularly amiable and a most accomplished
man ; but he was unquestionably vain and self-com¬
placent. Demosthenes gives us the idea that Athens
and Greece were always foremost in his thoughts. As
an orator and statesman he may claim to rank above
Cicero. As an orator, he was the master of a more
fervid and impressive eloquence ; as a statesman, he
had more simplicity of purpose and greater moral
courage.

INTRODUCTION.

3

The period of Demosthenes is the fourth century b.c.
A brief sketch of it seems almost due to our readers.
The speeches of Demosthenes cannot he understood
without some acquaintance with Greek politics. Mace-
don, too, and its rise to importance under king Philip,
deserves at least a short notice. The history of the
time is somewhat intricate, and could not he thoroughly
elucidated in a very moderate compass. An endeavour
has heen made in the two following chapters to pre¬
sent the reader with a view of its general character.

CHAPTEK I.

GREECE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY B.C.

Athens in the fifth century b.c. was at the head of
the Greek world. Her empire, like our own, was a
“ government of dependencies.” In its nature it was
somewhat precarious. Although it was not specially
oppressive, it was in many quarters an object of ex¬
treme jealousy. When Athens attempted the conquest
of Sicily, it was felt that this was hut a step towards
ulterior and more dangerous designs. It was a most
hazardous attempt, under existing circumstances. On
the sea, indeed, Athens was all-powerful ; hut she had
formidable enemies on land very near her — Thebes to
the north, Sparta to the south. After her great reverse
in Sicily, she was hardly a match for Sparta at the
head of the Peloponnese. She still struggled on, and
even won some victories, till the long contest, known as
the Peloponnesian War, came to an end in 405 b.c.
with the decisive battle of iEgos-potami. There, in
the waters of the Hellespont, almost her entire fleet
was captured by the Spartan admiral, Ly sander.

Sparta now succeeded to the headship of Greece.
She retained it down to the year 371 b.c. During this

GREECE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY B.C. 5

period she contrived to make herself thoroughly hated.
Her system was to rule by means of oligarchical factions
in the different states. These factions she supported
by military garrisons. There was a garrison for a
time in the Cadmea, or the citadel of Thebes. It was
forced into the city, and subsequently maintained there
with a flagrant disregard of justice and equity. The
Spartan king Agesilaus coolly asserted that if it was for
Sparta’s interest it was right. Altogether, the Spartan
rule was much more galling than the Athenian had
been. Sparta, indeed, always seems to have been a
more selfish state than Athens. It is true that Athens
in her greatness had been spoken of as “ a despot city;”
but there was at the same time a feeling that she
worthily represented Greece. This could hardly be
said of Sparta. She was now cultivating friendly re¬
lations with Persia, and had procured the conclusion of
a peace with that power, the terms of which 'were by
no means honourable to Greece. This was the peace
of Antalcidas in 387 b.c. — one of the landmarks, so to
say, in Greek history. It had ever been a Greek tra¬
dition that the freedom and independence of the Greeks
in Asia ought to be upheld. By the peace of Antal¬
cidas they were put under the dominion of Persia.
Athens would hardly have yielded such a point, and
in the days of her maritime supremacy she could and
would have made it impossible. Sparta was respon¬
sible for this disgraceful concession. She made matters
worse by seeking to convert her headship of Greece
into a downright despotism. In doing this she 'wrought
infinite mischief, and may be almost said to have pre-

6

DEMOSTHENES.

pared the way for the subsequent ealamities of Greece
and its subjection to Macedon. She endeavoured per¬
sistently to break up the Greek world into a number
of petty dependencies, which she might hold under
her absolute control. Her systematic policy was to
reduce Greece to a collection of separate towns and
even villages, each of which should be completely in
her own power. The idea which lay at the root of
Greek strength and greatness was, that Greece should
be made up of federations, with the leading cities at
the head of them. In the face of a common foe these
federations, it was hoped and believed, would be at¬
tracted to each other, and would feel that they had a
common cause. This was Panhellenism. Sparta, by
her methods of rule, weakened this idea, and thereby
undermined the foundations of the Greek world. The
feebleness and disunion of Greece in the fourth century
b.c., which were so favourable to Macedon, were, in
part at least, due to Sparta’s influence. In one in¬
stance she inflicted the most direct and positive mischief
upon Greece. At the head of the Gulf of Torone, in
the peninsula of Chalcidice, was the prosperous city of
Olynthus, round which had grown up a confederacy
of Greek towns that might have been an effectual
barrier against Macedon, or any other northern power.
This confederacy Sparta, true to her policy, broke up
in 379 b.c., and thus gave a heavy blow to Greek in¬
terests on the coasts of Macedon and Thrace. But for
this, the Aegean and the Propontis might never have
known the presence of Macedonian cruisers, and Philip’s
kingdom might have remained a poor and barbarous

GREECE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY li.C. 7

territory. Olynthus, indeed, to a certain extent re¬
covered herself, and became again a flourishing and
independent city ; hut the mischief which had been
already done was past remedy.

With the great battle of Leuctra in 371 b.c. Sparta’s
ascendancy ceased. Thebes was now raised by the
illustrious Epameinondas into the first place in Greece.
North of the Peloponnese she could do as she pleased.
She had Thessaly quite under her control, and Macedon
was little better than a dependency. Her next step,
after Leuctra, was to strengthen herself in the Pelopon¬
nese, and to complete the humiliation of Sparta. This
was done by the founding of the two cities Megalopolis
and Messene, under the direction of Epameinondas.
Sparta, as we have seen, aimed at breaking up and dis¬
solving federations ; Thebes, on the contrary, formed
the Arcadian townships, forty in number, into a con¬
federacy, of which Megalopolis, the Great City, was
made the centre. Messene was then founded on Mount
Ithome, and became the rallying-place of a population
which had long been unwillingly subject to Sparta.
What had hitherto been Spartan territory was actually
annexed to it. Sparta’s limits were thus greatly nar¬
rowed. On the north and on the west she was con¬
fronted by independent communities, and her position
in the Peloponnese was wellnigh destroyed. Though
Thebes soon fell back from the pre-eminence to which
the genius of Epameinondas had lifted her, Sparta was
never able to regain her ancient prestige.

Athens, from some cause or other, had much more
elasticity and power of recovery than Sparta. There

8

DEMOSTHENES.

was a life and sprightliness about her citizens which
made them quickly forget calamities and rise to new
hopes and aspirations. So it was with them after
Leuctra. Athens at once was fired with the ambition
of winning back her old empire ; and she actually suc¬
ceeded in again becoming the head of a powerful con¬
federacy. The disgust which Sparta had provoked
throughout the Greek world was no doubt a great help
to Athens. Once more her fleet sailed supreme over
the TEgean. As a matter of course, the chief islands
joined her alliance. A synod of deputies from her allies
and dependents obeyed her summons, and contribu¬
tions were voted for the common cause. She had able
men— such as Timotheus, Ipliicrates, and Chabrias —
to command her forces. At the time of Philip’s acces-
sion to the throne of Macedon in 359 b.c., Athens was
the first state in Greece. She was not specially well
fitted for war on land, and was in this respect inferior
to Thebes, which could send out an army in the highest
efficiency. But by sea she was, beyond comparison,
the first power. Rhodes, Chios, Cos, and the important
cities of Perinthus and Byzantium, were her allies.
Samos, off the coast of Lydia, and Thasos, Lemnos,
Imbros in the north of the /Egean, had been recently
conquered by her; she was in possession of the Thra¬
cian Chersonese, of Pydna and Methone on the coast
of Macedon, and of Potidsea and other towns in the
peninsula of Chalcidice. The waters of the vEgean
were thus an Athenian lake. But she could not hold
together this confederation. She had no proper control
over her generals. They were not in fact the servants

GREECE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY B.C. 9

of the state, hut men of the “ Condottieri” type. As a
rule, they commanded mercenaries, for whom they could
not provide pay without systematically plundering the
allies. These generals really maintained their troops
by means of “ forced benevolences.” It could hardly
be expected that all this would be patiently endured.
In 358 b.c. the Social War, as it was termed, broke
out — Rhodes and Byzantium, it would seem, leading
the revolt. It lasted two years. The efforts of Athens
appear to have been rather fitful and wanting in vigour.
When a rumour came that Persia was about to support
the revolted allies with a fleet of 300 ships, Athens
gave up the struggle and acknowledged their indepen¬
dence. The confederation, of which for a brief space
she had been the head, was thus at an end.

This was a great blow to Athens. She was still
powerful by sea, but she was very much impoverished,
a large part of her revenue having been lost to her
through the secession of several of her richest allies.
Was it not now best for her to rest from her ambition,
and to think no more of “ a spirited foreign policy”1? So
argued one of her citizens, the famous orator Isocrates.
He complains that his countrymen “ were so infatuated
that while they themselves wanted the means of sub¬
sistence they were undertaking to maintain mercenaries,
and were maltreating their allies and levying tribute
from them, in order that they might provide pay for
the common enemies of mankind.” By these he means
the generals, of whom also Demosthenes, his political
opponent, says, in one of his speeches, that “ they go
ranging about and behaving everywhere as the common

10

1) E MUST 11 ENES.

enemies of all who wish to live in freedom according to
their own laws.” Athens, he contends, might recover
from the losses and disasters of the Social War, if
she would only eschew for the future a meddling and
aggressive policy, he prepared for self-defence, and de¬
vote herself to commerce and to the arts of peace. In
this way she would, with the great natural advantages
she possessed, very soon again become rich and pros¬
perous. This was the advice of Isocrates. It might well
seem sensible and timely. And, as a matter of fact, it
suited the temper of many of the citizens. There was
a disposition to shrink from personal efforts, and, if
war became a necessity, to leave it more and more to
mercenaries. In such a mood there were dangers, as
the event proved, to the cause both of Athens and of
Greece.

A peace party was the natural result. It was in
power at Athens for some years after the conclusion of
the Social war, the critical period during which Philip
of Macedon was step by step advancing to the position
he ultimately attained. It had the advocacy of the
speeches and pamphlets of Isocrates, who had the com¬
mand, not undeservedly, of the public ear. It was
thus supported by the ablest journalism of the day.
Again, it had an eminently respectable man as one
of its leaders. This was Phocion, whose integrity was
proverbial. Porty-five times was he chosen general,
and he gained several victories for Athens. He was
alone sufficient to give strength to a political party.
Another of its leaders was Eubulus, a man of very
inferior type. His great aim was to put the people in

GREECE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY B.C. 11

a good humour. There was a singular arrangement at
Athens by which the State defrayed the cost of the
public amusements and dramatic exhibitions for the
benefit of the poor citizens. A regular fund was pro¬
vided for this purpose, and after a time the surplus of
the annual public revenue was added to it. It had
formerly been the law that this surplus should always
during war be paid into the military chest for the
defence of the State. Eubulus actually induced the
people to pass a law making it a capital offence to pro¬
pose that this fund should be so applied on any future
occasion. Consequently, the only method of meeting
the costs of war was the exaction of a property tax
from the rich. War under these circumstances could
not but involve very serious and sorely-felt sacrifices.
We may form some idea of the pressure of the burden
by supposing the case of an income tax of 4s. or 5s. in
the pound among ourselves. No ministry, it is clear,
could venture to declare war except under the most pal¬
pable necessity, if such a tax were inevitable. Eubulus
accordingly conciliated the rich by doing his utmost to
save them from the dreaded burden. He was, as we
should say, prime minister of Athens for sixteen years.
His position must have been a very strong one, accept¬
able, as we have just seen, to rich and poor alike.
There can hardly be a doubt that his policy impaired
the Athenian character, and made the work of Demos¬
thenes peculiarly difficult.

Athens thus entered on a great contest under un¬
favourable conditions. She was still, from her exten¬
sive trade, the richest city in Greece, and she had the

12

DEMOSTHENES.

means of sending out formidable fleets. But her citi¬
zens liked ease and comfort, and preferred their cheer¬
ful city life to foreign service. Her dominions, too, were
rather vulnerable, not being guarded by any regular
troops. If they were attacked, they bad to be defend¬
ed by mercenaries, commanded by the sort of general
who lias been described. Then, too, her commerce,
with which her prosperity was closely bound up, might
be harassed by an enterprising enemy, and her supplies
of corn from the Black Sea endangered. Thus, in fight¬
ing Macedon she was perhaps at some disadvantage,
though we may be inclined to think that a little more
energy and vigour would have carried her successfully
through the struggle. The truth is, she was not for a
long time alive to the real danger, and was conse¬
quently remiss in seizing opportunities. There was a
party which urged alliance with Thebes. But Thebes
was more hateful to an average Athenian than Sparta
had ever been. Such a party seemed untrue to the
old traditions of Athens. Hence it was always com¬
paratively weak. Had the danger from Macedon been
distinctly foreseen, the alliance would perhaps have
been effected. Athens and Thebes united might, it
can hardly be doubted, have confined Philip to his
own hereditary kingdom and have saved Greece.

CHAPTER II.

MACEDON AND PHILIP.

The name of Macedon, though it is heard of from
time to time in Greek history, can hardly be said to have
become really famous till the fourth century b.c. and
the reign of Philip. It could never have occurred to the
mind of a Greek that this outlying northern kingdom
might possibly one day be formidable to Greece and its
freedom. There were no signs pointing in this direction ;
and it may he fairly assumed that no political sagacity
could have foreseen such a result. The Macedonians
were always looked upon by the Greeks as barbarians,
although their royal family — Temenids, as they were
called, from their legendary ancestor, Temenus — came
from Argos, and the people themselves perhaps had
some distant affinity to the Hellenic race. For a long
period they were nothing better than a collection of
rude tribes, with scarcely any cohesion or organisation,
and before the disciplined army of a Greek state they
would have been utterly powerless. They were sur¬
rounded, too, by fierce and unquiet neighbours — Illyr¬
ians to the west, Pseonians to the north, Thracians to
the east, — all savage, warlike peoples, whom they could

14

DEMOSTHENES.

only just hold in check. The country, indeed, with its
rivers and rich valleys and strips of seaboard, had nat¬
ural advantages which a vigorous prince with organis¬
ing capacity might develop ; and this was partially done
by Archelaus, who reigned from 413 b.c. to 399. He
was a man of great energy, and he may be said to have
put Macedon in the way to become a flourishing and
powerful kingdom. According to Thucydides,* he had
roads constructed, fortresses erected, and established a
standing army on a greater scale than any of his pre¬
decessors had kept up. Probably the last years of the
Peloponnesian war, which were so disastrous to Athens,
were favourable to Macedon, and enabled it to acquire
an influence on the northern coasts of the Aegean,
which previously Athens had possessed. Still, no
doubt Archelaus deserves the credit of having steadily
applied himself to the work of strengthening and con¬
solidating his kingdom. At the same time, he did his
best to civilise his people, and to bring them into con¬
nection with the Greek world. He cultivated the
friendship of Athens, and sought to introduce its
literature and art. He established a grand periodical
festival on the Greek type, with all the humanising
adjuncts of music and poetry. The great poet Euri¬
pides visited his court at his special invitation, and
was treated with such favour and respect that he re¬
mained there till his death. The philosopher Socrates
was invited, but it appears that he declined the honour.
The famous painter, Zeuxis of Heracleia, was one of the
king’s guests, and he was employed to adorn with pic-

* Thucydides, ii. 100.

MACE DON AND PHILIP.

15

tures the royal palace at Pella, the new capital of
Macedonia. In fact, Archelaus was an enlightened
despot ; and though he could not eradicate barbarism
and make Macedonians into Greeks, he at least gave
the higher class a varnish of Greek civilisation and
culture.

It was not unusual for the kings of Macedon to perish
by the hands of conspirators and assassins, and this was
the fate of Archelaus. The dynasty was now changed;
and after a few years of disturbance, Amyntas, the
father of Philip, became king in 394 b.c. His reign
was not a prosperous one. Macedonia went back, and
its very existence as an independent kingdom was in
jeopardy. According to one account, Amyntas was
obliged to surrender Philip as a hostage to the Illyr¬
ians, who were then particularly troublesome. He
left his kingdom at his death, in 370 b.c., in an almost
desperate plight. The succession to the throne was
disputed, and the enemies on the border were as for¬
midable as ever. Macedon, indeed, seemed on the eve
of being wholly extinguished. The eldest son and
successor of Amyntas, Alexander, was murdered ; and
shortly afterwards the Theban Pelopidas was invited
into the country by the friends of the royal family,
with the view probably of securing the throne for the
two younger brothers, Perdiccas and Philip. Pelopi¬
das, it seems, forced on Macedonia the adoption of this
arrangement, and took Philip with him to Thebes, as
a hostage for its being faithfully carried out. Philip
passed three years at Thebes, while his brother Perdic¬
cas was king. He then, in 368 b.c., was intrusted

DEMOSTHENES.

1 r.

with the government of a portion of Macedonia under
Perdiccas, and employed his time in equipping and
organising some troops. His brother’s reign had a dis¬
astrous termination. He was defeated with heavy loss
by the Illyrians, and died soon afterwards. And so
Philip, now twenty-three years of age, became king of
Macedon in 359 b.c., there being only an infant son
of Perdiccas whose claim to the throne it was not dif¬
ficult, under the circumstances, to set aside with the
national approval.

Ho prince could have begun his reign with gloomier
prospects than the future conqueror of Greece. He
was encompassed by enemies. There were other claim¬
ants of the throne — one of these being Argaeus who
was supported by Athens. He thus had to fear attack
from barbarian neighbours by land, and from Athenian
fleets by sea. The hostile attitude of the Athenians
was determined by then’ very prudent desire to recover
the important position of Amphipolis at the mouth of
the Strymon. To Athens the possession of this place
was of the utmost value, as it was the key to a region
rich in gold and silver mines, as well as in forest-timber.
To this the people had an eye, in supporting the pre¬
tensions of Argaeus to the throne of Macedon against
Philip. The king, however, met them promptly, and
won a victory over a little force which they had sent
to Methone on the Macedonian coast of the Gulf of
Thermae. He took some Athenian citizens prisoners ;
but as he was anxious to conciliate Athens, he treated
them with marked respect, and allowed them at once
to return. He then made peace with Athens, and

MAC EDO N AND PHILIP.

17

waived all claim to Amphipolis, in which his pre¬
decessor had placed a Macedonian garrison. The city
was now left to itself ; and the Athenians, had they
been wise, would have spared no effort to secure it.
As it was, they let slip a golden opportunity of regain¬
ing a position which might have been in their hands a
barrier against the growing power of Macedon, and
would have certainly enabled them to maintain their
maritime supremacy on the /Egean.

Philip meanwhile, having freed himself for the
present from the fear of Athens, was at liberty to fence
off his kingdom from the attacks of its land enemies.
He had already organised something of a military force,
and with this he prepared to strike a decisive blow at
the Illyrian, Paeonian, and Thracian tribes, which were
perpetually crossing the Macedonian frontier in plun¬
dering expeditions. It seems that these tribes, which
were scattered over what are now the provinces of
Bosnia, Servia, and Albania, were at this time being
pushed southwards by a great movement of the Gauls.
The Illyrians were Macedon’s most dangerous neigh¬
bours, and they had inflicted many a disastrous defeat
on Philip’s predecessors. Now they were at the height
of their power, and were united for purposes of war
under a chief named Bardylis, an able leader and a
brave warrior. Philip, after thorougldy vanquishing
the Paeonians, which he seems to have done easily,
turned his arms against the more formidable Illyrians,
and attacked them in western Macedonia, which they
had invaded. He won a hard-fought battle, chiefly
through the efficiency of his cavalry. The Illyrian
a.o.s.s. vol. iv.

B

18

DEMOSTHENES.

army was utterly discomfited, and their chief was glad
to make peace, and cede whatever portions of Mace¬
donia he had conquered and occupied. The result of
this victory was, that the Macedonian frontier was
pushed to the lake Lychnitis (now Okridha), and was
made far more secure than it had hitherto been, by the
occupation of mountain - passes through which the
Illyrian invaders used to pour into Macedonia.

The famous phalanx, which we connect specially
with the names of Macedon and Philip and Alexander,
is said to have taken part in this battle. Philip has
been credited with this military invention; but, in
truth, he can be said only to have introduced it. He
may have considerably modified it, but it had always
been an important element in a Greek army. It was
the great Epameinondas of Thebes who seems to have
first organised it in its most powerful and effective
form. He, in fact, it was who brought the science of
Avar to the highest perfection hitherto known in Greece.
Philip, during his residence as a young man in Thebes,
may well have had opportunities of personal intercourse
with this illustrious general, and have derived from him
many profitable hints and suggestions. At all events, he
had daily under his eyes the magnificent soldiers aat1io had
fought and conquered at Leuctra. His first military
ideas Avere thus draAvn from the best of all schools, and
we may well suppose that a deep impression Avas at the
same time made on his young imagination. He Avould
soon see that the barbarous enemies of Macedon Avould
never be able to stand against really Avell-trained troops.
He had also at Thebes the literary and philosophical

MACE DON AND PHILIP.

19

teaching which often lays the foundation of able states¬
manship. Possibly he may have made the acquaintance
of Plato, and there is certainly ground for believing
that the philosopher conceived a high opinion of his
ability. Nor is it unlikely that he may also at this
time have had his admiration directed by some circum¬
stance to Aristotle, whom he afterwards made the
tutor of the young Alexander. It is certain that he
became imbued with some amount of Greek culture,
and that he acquired the power of speaking and writing
the language almost as well as a professed orator or
rhetorician. He liked to look on himself, and to be
regarded by others, as thoroughly a Greek; and this it
was, no doubt, which inclined him to be always con¬
siderate towards Athens, as the foremost state of Greece.
Perhaps he was not too young, before he left Thebes,
to imbibe some political notions. In such a city he
would at least have a good opportunity of getting an
insight into the character of Greek politics, and he
might have early learnt some of those weak points in
Greece which his adroitness subsequently enabled him
to turn to such profitable account.

Philip, after his victories over the Illyrians and
Pseonians, which for a time at least made Macedonia
secure on the land side, still reigned over a poor and
half-barbarous kingdom. He had much to do before
he could hope to become a considerable power in the
Greek world. As yet, he did not possess a single town
on the coast. He had, as we have seen, given up
Amphipolis to please the Athenians. He must have
been surprised to find that they did not make haste to

20

DEMOSTHENES.

recover that important place. But they committed the
blunder, and allowed the people of Amphipolis to remain
their own masters. Soon afterwards, in 358 b.c., Philip
thought he might as well possess himself of it; and
when the inhabitants refused to surrender, he laid siege
to the city. Envoys were sent to Athens, asking for
help; but it is possible that at this crisis the war with
the allies had just begun, and that the Athenians may
have thus found themselves fully occupied. Philip,
too, promised them in a very civil letter that he would
put them in possession of it as soon as he had taken it.
The Athenians did nothing, though it could not have
been very difficult for them to have saved the place
and secured it for themselves. This was indeed short¬
sighted, as they now again had an opportunity of
securing a commanding position, and of nipping Philip’s
power in the bud. It was one of those errors which
can never be retrieved. Athens lost prestige , as well
as a most useful dependency. When Philip took the
city, Olynthus, which was not far distant, and was at
the head of a group of Greek townships in the penin¬
sula of Chalcidice, was seriously alarmed, and proposed
an alliance to Athens. The offer was rejected, as the
Athenians, it seems, still wished to look on Philip as
their friend, and were persuaded to trust his promises.
The cunning prince contrived not only to buy off the
hostility of Olynthus, but actually to win its friend¬
ship and to become its ally by the cession of a
disputed strip of territory near Thessalonica. The
next thing he did was to venture on an openly hostile
act against Athens by conquering and wresting from

MAC EBON AND PHILIP.

21

her a most important possession, the city of Potideea,
on the gulf of Thermae. This, too, he gave up to the
Olynthians. Pydna, also, on the shore of the same
gulf, opposite to Potidaea, likewise an Athenian pos¬
session, fell into his hands through internal treachery;
and Athens, it appears, made no effort to save the
place. Thus, in a single year, 358 b.c., Philip gained
three most valuable positions on the coast, and a severe
shock was given to Athenian influence in the north of
the iEgean. He had hitherto been poor ; now he had
the means of raising an ample revenue. Master of
Amphipolis, he had free access to the gold region in
the neighbourhood east of the Strymon. Here he
founded the city which we know by the familiar name
of Philippi. He had now a well-organised army, and
he was able to maintain it. In little more than two
years he had immensely increased the strength and
resources of his kingdom. But it was not till six
years afterwards that Macedon was felt to be a distinct
menace to the Greek world.

CHAPTER III.

EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES.

We cannot be quite certain about the year in which
Demosthenes was born. The accounts are conflicting,
and we are thrown back on somewhat doubtful infer¬
ences. The year, it seems, must have been either 385-
384 b.c. or 382-381 b.c. His early life thus coincided
with an eventful period, and witnessed more than one
remarkable political change in the Greek world. In the
years immediately after his birth the supremacy of
Sparta was unquestioned. Greece lay at her feet.
Her power had made itself felt far beyond the Pelo-
ponnese, even on the northern shores of the vEgean.
She had overthrown the city which might have become
an effectual bulwark against the terrible king of Mace-
don. Olynthus became her vassal in the year 379 b.c.
All was changed eight years afterwards. The decisive
battle of Leuctra, in 371 b.c., struck down Sparta and
gave the ascendancy to Thebes. For a few years Greece
resounded with the fame of her two illustrious citzens,
Epameinondas and Pelopidas. But when she lost
Epameinondas, nine years after Leuctra, in the brilliant
victory of Mantineia, she lost with him the supreme

EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES.

23

control of Greek politics, retaining merely the foremost
rank among the northern states. Meanwhile she had
given, as we have seen, shelter and education to the
future destroyer of Greek freedom.

Amid these changes and revolutions, Demosthenes
grew up to manhood. His own state, Athens, had
achieved nothing specially worthy of record during
this period. Still, she was altogether the most famous
city of Greece, and was commercially prosperous. The
father of Demosthenes, who bore the same name, was

a rich and eminently respectable citizen. He was a

¥

merchant and a manufacturer, and belonged to the
wealthy middle class. His property was distributed in
various investments. He had two manufactories, and
each, it seems, had a good business. One was a sword
and knife manufactory, and employed thirty-two slaves.
The other was a cabinet manufactory, and in this
twenty slaves were employed. He had also money
out at interest, a deposit account at one of the principal
banks, and sums lent, according to a very prevalent
Athenian practice, on ship-cargoes. He had, too, a
house- of some value, and good furniture and plate;
and his wife was an heiress, and had her jewels on a
tolerably handsome scale. But the lady, whose name
was Cleobule, was not of pure Athenian blood, and
her birth and antecedents were not quite what could be
desired. Her father, Gylon, was a man of distinctly
blemished reputation. He had been, in fact, accused
of treason — the charge against him being that he had
betrayed to the enemy the seaport town of Hymphseum
in the Crimea. He did not appear to answer the

24

DEMOSTHENES.

accusation, and was, according to one account, sentenced
to death in liis absence. But he contrived to. do well
for himself. He went to Panticapseum, now Kertch,
in the Crimea, then the capital of the kings of Bos¬
porus, and there, through the king’s favour, obtained
a grant of land and married a rich wife. She was
sneeringly spoken of at Athens as a barbarian and a
Scythian — and so iEschines describes her ; but it is
quite possible that she may have been the daughter of
one of those many Greeks who had settled in this
remote district to carry on the business of exporting
corn to Athens. It was then, as now, a specially
corn-growing region. Gylon, it seems, made the most
of the king’s favour, and traded with great success.
He was unquestionably a sharp, shrewd man ; and he
sent his two daughters well dowered to Athens, and
there they both made fairly good matches. Both got
Athenian citizens for their husbands — the one marry¬
ing Demochares, and the other the elder Demosthenes.
We may not unreasonably conjecture that the mother
of Demosthenes inherited some natural ability from her
sagacious and enterprising father.

It was the misfortune of Demosthenes to be left an
orphan when only seven years of age, and to fall into
the hands of unscrupulous guardians. His father died
worth fourteen talents, — about £3500 of our money.
This, according to modern notions, is a very moderate
property; but at Athens it was sufficiently large to place
its possessor in the wealthiest class, and to render him
liable to the highest rate of direct taxation. There
Avere much larger fortunes, no doubt, as that of N icias,

EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES.

25

which is said to have amounted to 100 talents, or about
£24,000. Alcibiades was even richer; and Callias, who
lived at the time of the Persian war, and' secured a
good share of the plunder, was what we should call a
millionaire, being reported to have been worth 200
talents. Athens, as we have seen, was, of all the Greek
cities, by far the richest, and it always contained a
number of well-to-do citizens. The ordinary rate of
interest was extremely high. Money lent even on good
security fetched from 12 to 20 per cent; and some in¬
vestments, those especially on ship-cargoes — hazardous,
no doubt — were yet more lucrative. As much as 30
per cent was now and then paid on this class of invest¬
ments. Demosthenes asserts, in- his pleadings against
his guardians, that a third part of his estate- produced
an income of fifty minas. This would make the
entire income about £600 a-year. Now, it appears that
a citizen could live just decently at Athens on some¬
thing like seven or eight minas a-year, or about £32 ;
and in perfect comfort and respectability on fifty
minas, or about £200 a-year, provided he kept clear of
the various costly public services which were demanded
from the rich. Demosthenes, therefore, it is clear,
having but one sister, ought to have had a very ample
fortune, though he could not have been described as
extremely wealthy. His father, being in business,
probably got 25 or even 30 per cent for a large part
of his capital, and we should suppose that he was at
Athens in much the same position as a man with from
£2000 to £3000 a-year would be with us. Had his
will been faithfully carried out, and a third of the

26

DEMOSTHENES.

income been set apart for maintenance and education,
and two-thirds profitably invested, the son must have
been decidedly rich when at the age of sixteen, ten
years after his father’s death, he attained his majority.

As it was, he found himself comparatively poor.
He had to receive something less than two talents, and
his income could not have exceeded from £60 to <£70
a-year. His father, we may surmise, had misgivings
about the administration of the property, as he practi¬
cally endeavoured to bribe the three guardians, two of
whom were his nephews, into a faithful discharge of
their trust by giving them full control over almost one-
third of the property. His sister’s son, Aphobus, was
to marry the widow, with a fair fortime, and to have
the house and furniture during the minority of Demos¬
thenes. His brother’s son, Demophon, was to have
two talents, and to marry the daughter in due time.
In all respects he seems to have carefully provided for
his two children, and to have left them in the charge
of relatives on whose fidelity he might reasonably
reckon. The result can be ascribed only to negligence
and dishonesty. The property must have been partly
muddled away, partly actually embezzled. Admitting
that some of the investments were precarious, and that
the business of the two manufactories was simply mis¬
managed, we can hardly doubt that the trustees were
unprincipled as well as utterly careless. It is true, indeed,
that Demosthenes was taunted by his rival Aeschines with
having squandered his patrimony in ridiculous follies ;
and it was alleged by one of the guardians, in defending
the action, that large advances had been made. The

EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES.

27

boy had, it would seem, rather luxurious tastes, and
in the last two years of his minority he may have
indulged them freely. But this very inadequately
explains the smallness of the sums handed over to him.
It is an all but absolute certainty that he was swindled
out of his property. The matter ended in his bringing
an action against Aphobus, and recovering a verdict
for ten talents. It is not certain whether lie actually
received this amount. Aphobus was rich and influential,
and contrived to make further difficulties. AVe have
five speeches connected with this action — three against
Aphobus, and two against a brother-in-law of Aphobus,
Onetor. It is from these speeches that we chiefly get
our information about the property of Demosthenes.
AVe have not the means of knowing the precise results
of the suit, or what benefit, if any, Demosthenes de¬
rived from it. Much of the estate had somehow or
other disappeared, and he had to enter on life as rather
a poor instead of a rich man.

It is probable that his misfortunes had a good effect
on his character. They may have been the source of his
intense resolution and perseverance. From early years
he had a weak constitution, and shrank from the vigor¬
ous physical training which was considered an essential
element in a Greek education. He had an active
mind, and a strong craving for intellectual culture. As
became his position and expectations, he went to good
schools — though his guardians, if we may believe his
statement, were shabby enough to leave his school-fees
unpaid. He had a passion for speeches and recitations;
and it was said that he once induced his schoolmaster

28

I) K M 0 ST HE NE S.

to go with him to hear one of the first speakers of the
day, Callistratus, who was delivering a great political
harangue on the cession of the border-town Oropus to
the Tliehans. The occasion may have been a turning-
point in his life. But he had an unlucky infirmity; he,
who was to he the greatest orator of all time, stammered
in his boyhood and youth. It would seem as if his
physical defects were too much for his mental vigour
and his ambitious aspirations.

Plutarch in his ‘Life of Demosthenes’ gives us several
interesting details about his study and preparation for
the career of an orator, and it is satisfactory to find
that so high an authority as Mr Grote thinks that they
rest on good evidence. It appears that the youth put
himself under the instruction of Isseus, one of the first
advocates of the time, who was frequently retained in
cases connected with wills and disputes about property.
In his speeches against his guardians he is said to have
availed himself of the counsel and guidance of this
eminent lawyer. But the most fashionable rhetoric-
professor of the day was Isocrates, and Demosthenes
was among the number of his most attentive and ad¬
miring hearers ; though perhaps we must not believe a
story according to which he asked the great man to
teach him a fifth part of his art for two minas, as he
could not afford the regular fee of ten minas, about
<£40, to learn the whole. One would like to believe
that he heard and admired some of the discourses of
Plato, who was then in the height of his philosophical
glory; and there is a tradition, mentioned by Cicero
and Tacitus, to this effect. The literary styles of the

EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES.

29

two men are no doubt very diverse ; yet, as Dr Tliirl-
wall suggests, it is not wholly improbable that the
lofty morality which Demosthenes ventured to intro¬
duce into speeches addressed to Athenian assemblies
and law courts may have been inspired by the philo¬
sopher. That he was a devoted student of the great
History of Thucydides, that he copied it out eight times,
and almost knew it by heart, we may well believe.
One of the ancient critics, Dionysius of Halycarnassus,
has elaborately pointed out resemblances in the orator
to the historian. Strangely enough Cicero, in his
Orator,* asks the question, “ What Greek orator ever
borrowed anything from Thucydides 1 ” We really fail
to see the point of this question, unless he meant to
limit the term orator to a mere pleader, and even then
we think he is wrong. But for the purpose of political
oratory there cannot be a doubt that both the style and
matter of Thucydides might be studied with infinite
profit by a man of real capacity.

Nothing but the utmost energy and perseverance
would have enabled Demosthenes to make himself an
orator. He had, as already said, to surmount the
actual physical difficulties of a feeble constitution and
of some defect in his organs of speech. His ultimate
success was a decisive proof of a singularly exceptional
force of character. It is for this, indeed, as exhibited
throughout his whole career, that he specially deserves
admiration. We are told that he practised speaking
with pebbles in his mouth ; that he strengthened his
. lungs and his voice by reciting as he ran up hill ; that

* Chapter ix.

30

DEMOSTHENES.

lie declaimed on the seashore amid the noise of waves
and storms. He would even pass two or three months
continuously in a subterranean cell, shaving one side
of his head, that he might not he able to show himself
in public, to the interruption of his rhetorical exercises.
But all this patient and laborious practice did not
procure immediate success. ~No public assembly could
be more critical and fastidious than that of Athens.
Demosthenes failed repeatedly. One of the old citizens
found him on one of these occasions wandering about
disconsolately in the Pirseus, and tried to cheer him
up by saying, “You have a way of speaking which re¬
minds me of Pericles, but you lose yourself through mere
timidity and cowardice.” Another time he was return¬
ing to his home in deep dejection, when Satyrus, a great
and popular actor, with whom he was well acquainted,
entered into conversation with him. Demosthenes
complained that though he was the most painstaking
of all the orators, and had almost sacrificed his health
to his intense application, yet he could find no favour
with the people, and that drunken seamen and other
illiterate persons were listened to in preference to him¬
self. “ True,” replied the actor, “ but I will provide
you a remedy if you will repeat to me some speech in
Euripides or Sophocles.” Demosthenes did so, and then
Satyrus recited the same speech in such a manner that
it seemed to the orator quite a different passage. With
the aid of such hints, joined to his own indefatigable
industry, he at last achieved a distinct success in the
law courts, and his services as an advocate were in
great request.

After all, he had not much of which, according to

EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES.

31

our notions, a man could reasonably complain. Suc¬
cess came to him very early in life. He was, as we
should say, in large practice at the bar when he was
considerably under thirty — an age at which a young
English barrister hardly hopes for a brief. Doubtless,
at Athens there were opportunities for displaying ora¬
torical ability which do not exist in England. One
thoroughly successful speech before the popular assem¬
bly might well make the fortune of a man as an advo¬
cate. To make such a speech required, we may be sure,
marked ability and considerable training; but once
made, it must at least have opened a career in the law
courts. Athenian law, too, was probably less intricate
and difficult than English. It had not such a variety
of branches, as seem to be indispensable in so complex
a community as our own. The study of it must thus
have been a much less arduous task than that which
lies before the English lawyer. But it was an admir¬
able preparation for political life. Law and politics
were intermingled at Athens very much more than
among ourselves ; and a lawyer was almost necessarily
something of a politician. There, questions which we
regard as purely political, and which would be dis¬
cussed with us only in Parliament, might come before
a law court. An accusation, for instance, might be
preferred against a man for proposing a law or a decree
quite at variance with the spirit of the constitution.
Such cases were frequent. It was in a prosecution of
this nature that Demosthenes, who for some few years
had had a good practice as a barrister in civil and
criminal causes, made what we may fairly call his first
appearance as a political adviser.

CHAPTER IV.

DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE.

In all democracies much will be expected from the rich.
This was the rule in the Greek states, and especially
at Athens. There the constitution demanded a certain
amount of public spirit, and prescribed various modes
in which it was to display itself. Athenians loved a
bright joyous life, and the wealthier of them were
under legal obligations to minister to the popular tastes
and contribute to the public amusements. There was
a good side to all this. It made the rich feel that they
must not use their riches merely for their own selfish en¬
joyment, hut that it ought to he the glory of an Athe¬
nian citizen of fortune to put happiness and refinement
within the reach of every member of the community.
Pericles, in the famous funeral oration, the substance of
which Thucydides has given us, had boasted how it was
the peculiar genius of Athens to combine mirthfulness
and gaiety with a strong sense of political responsibility.

Poetry and music were an essential part of an Athe¬
nian’s life. They were intimately connected with all
the religious festivals. With us the pleasures of the
opera are necessarily confined to a select few. At

DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 33

Athens the poorest citizen was enabled to gratify his
taste for such pleasures. The law imposed on a man
with a certain amount of property the liability of hav¬
ing to provide a chorus of singers or musicians on some
great public occasion. He had to bear all the expenses
himself. Having made up his number, he had to ob¬
tain a teacher or choir-master, and to pay him for his
instruction. He had also, it seems, to board and lodge
the chorus during the time of its training, and he had,
further, to furnish them with suitable dresses. All
this, of course, he could do by deputy ; but if he was
anxious, as he usually would be, to do it with credit to
himself, he would find that he must give the matter
his personal attention. There was a prize for the best
performance; and this, if not intrinsically valuable,
was sure to be coveted. The choragus, as lie was
called, had a stall assigned him in the theatre, and it
was part of his duty to be present during the cere¬
mony with his crown and robe of office. There seems
to have been every variety of chorus — tragic and comic
choruses, pyrrhic choruses, and choruses of flute-players.
The expense of providing them might range from £100
to £1200 — a large sum in comparison with Athenian
wealth. Still this amount was, it appears, often ex¬
ceeded in an eager competition for the prize. The
successful choragus was certain to be a popular citizen.

This, then, was one of the regular charges on the
wealthier class. There were others. Athleticism and
gymnastic games were a prominent feature in Greek
life. At Athens one of the amusements in which they
specially delighted was running with the torch, the

A.C.S.S. vol. iv.

c

34

DEMOSTHENES.

runners carrying wax lights in their hands, which it
was their object not to extinguish. The race in the
time of Socrates began to be run on horseback, and
the training and preparation for it became one of
the public services, which the rich had to undertake.
The gymnasiarch, or director of these games, had to
defray all the expenses connected with the spectacle ;
he had to see to and to pay for the training of the
competitors, which was on a very elaborate scale, and
might involve a comparatively heavy outlay. Another
still more burdensome obligation was the conduct of
religious embassies to various places. This was re¬
garded as a duty of the highest and most sacred kind ;
and whenever the State sent out a special commission
to any of the ancient seats of Greek worship, such as
Delos or Delphi, to consult the oracle of the god or to
offer a solemn sacrifice, it was represented by citizens
of wealth and distinction. Anything like parsimony
on such an occasion would have been thought pecu¬
liarly discreditable, and it was the tendency of an
Athenian to go to the opposite extreme. The head of
the sacred mission entered the city whither he was
bound with a crown of gold and in a splendidly equip-
pedchariot. Alcibiades astonished the Greek world
at the Olympic festival with his magnificent horses
and his princely expenditure. Even in an ordinary
way, however, the performance of this duty must have
been a costly service. A minor expense was that of
giving a public dinner to the particular tribe of which
a man was a member. This too was a burden im¬
posed on the rich. Last of all came the obligation to

DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 35

maintain the fleet in efficiency, — Athens’ defence and
glory. This — the trierarchy, as it was called — was a
service of which we are continually hearing in the
speeches of Demosthenes, and to place it on a satis¬
factory footing was an object he had specially at heart.

All these services, it must be understood, were legally
compulsory — not merely enforced on the rich by public
opinion, as in our time. At Athens, no citizen who
was registered as the possessor of a certain amount of
property could evade them. A man in England may
be obliged to serve the office of sheriff once in a way,
but to try to create public spirit by law would be
repugnant to our notions. In a Greek state there was
a much more distinct theory as to what each citizen
owed to the commonwealth; and Athens, the very
type of Greek democracy, felt it most natural to make
these demands on her richer classes. At the same
time, she had thought fit to exempt certain persons from
the operation of this principle. There were a few
whose meritorious services might be fairly considered
to have earned them such an exemption — the trierarchy
alone excepted The privilege in some cases was ex¬
tended to their descendants. Two names were cherished
at Athens with peculiarly grateful remembrance, those
of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the illustrious tyran¬
nicides, who were believed to have given freedom and
equality to their city. To their offspring for ever was
granted immunity from the public burdens we have
just described. In like manner, a statesman or a
general who had deserved well of his country might
be rewarded with the same privilege for himself and

36

DEMOSTHENES.

his children. With us such men occasionally obtain
pensions, which, in a few instances, are continued to
their descendants. With the Athenians, they enjoyed
what was perhaps almost an equivalent — exemption
from costly and burdensome services.

It is easy to see that many abuses might creep into
this system ; and that even without any very glaring
abuses, there might be much envy and dissatisfaction.
Privileges of any kind are sure to give offence, and in
a democratical community they cannot fail to furnish a
handle to demagogues and politicians. We are there¬
fore not surprised to find that at Athens in 356 b.c. a
law was proposed and carried repealing all exemptions
and immunities. The author of the law was a certain
Leptines, who was no doubt put forward as the spokes¬
man of a considerable party. He contrived to get a
measure of a very sweeping kind passed, so that not
only were all existing grants of immunity abolished,
but it was declared illegal to make such grants in the
future, and even to ask for them was forbidden under
a heavy penalty. We do not know whether there was
any special impulse or provocation under which the
people of Athens allowed themselves to be persuaded
into passing this law. It roused, of course, a strong
opposition, the leader of which was a son of the famous
Chabrias, who had fallen in his country’s cause, fighting
on board his ship at the siege of Chios. The son had
inherited from his father one of these honourable grants
of immunity. He was, it seems, himself utterly un¬
worthy of it ; but he represented a principle, and had,
we may be sine, a numerous following. Demosthenes

DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 37

became his advocate, and in the year subsequent to
the passing of the law, he assailed it in a speech which
has always been much admired.

This was his first political effort. He was quite a
young man at the time — thirty years of age at most,
probably less. The speech he delivered does not
exhibit the fire and force of some of his subsequent
orations ; it is calm and argumentative, and deserves
the epithet of “ subtle ” which Cicero * applies to it.
It is in fact a specimen throughout of close and con¬
secutive reasoning. Leptines’ proposal was no doubt
popular, and it was supported by many plausible argu¬
ments. The circumstances of the State were such as
made any exemptions and immunities from public
burdens of very questionable expediency. Athens had
been seriously impoverished by her recent disastrous
war with her allies, and many of her richer citizens
must, for a time at least, have been sorely straitened
in their resources. To exempt such wealthy men from
burdens which there was not too much wealth left to
bear, might well seem a distinct loss to the State. It
increased the difficulty of providing for those public
festivals which were so dear to the people. It could
also no doubt be plausibly argued that exemptions had
been granted too freely, and now and then to thoroughly
unworthy persons. Many a man not particularly rich
would think himself aggrieved, when he saw some one
far richer than himself altogether exempt. The favoured
few were sure to be envied, and might almost be said
to be defrauding the State of what they owed it. The

* Orator, c. xxxi.

38

DEMO ST II EN E S.

object, in fact, of the law of Leptines was, it might be
contended, to insure for Athens the due performance of
services which she had a right to claim from every citizen
of ample means. The burden, he argued, ought to fall
on all such ; no exemptions ought to be granted, as it
was likely they would be granted unwisely, and the
examples of other states, such as Sparta and Thebes,
showed that these grants were unnecessary. Besides,
merit at Athens was rewarded in other ways ; and in
sweeping away such rewards as these, they would be
really abolishing what was not needed by the posses¬
sors, and was at the same time injurious to the State.
Thus the new law seemed on the surface a good one,
and must have enlisted popular sympathy. It promised
to get rid of invidious privileges, to distribute public
burdens equitably, and to provide for the celebration
of the festivals and games with becoming splendour.

The occasion was thus clearly one to task all the
powers of an opposition speaker. If we want a
modern analogy, we may suppose a motion brought
forward in the House of Commons in a time of
national distress, when every tax would be acutely
felt, to abolish all pensions ever granted to deserving
men and to their children. It is conceivable that such
a proposition might find supporters at a trying crisis,
and become a powerful party-cry. Demosthenes may
well have had an uphill battle to fight. But he took
the right ground, and rested his case on the highest
moral principles and the most enlightened view of
political expediency. The faith and honour of the
State, he maintained, must be superior to all other

DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 39

considerations. We may say that the text of his
speech was — “ A good name is hotter than riches.”

First, he argued that it was unjust to deprive the
people of the power to grant special privileges because
they had sometimes granted them improperly.

u You might as well take from them all their constitu¬
tional rights because they do not always exercise them
wisely. Even if a few undeserving persons received these
privileges, this was better than that none should be con¬
ferred, and that a powerful encouragement to patriotism
should be withdrawn. To revoke gifts which the State
had bestowed would be a scandalous breach of the
national faith. It would cast a slur on democratic
government, and create an impression that such govern¬
ments were as little to be trusted as those of oligarchs
and despots. It would be base ingratitude to many
distinguished foreigners — for example, to the king of
Bosporus, from whose country much corn was exported
to Athens, free of duty — and such men for the future
would not care to befriend the State in a time of need.
It was nothing to the purpose to speak of Sparta and
Thebes, as proofs that these grants of exemption were
not required. The whole genius and character of those
states were so radically different, that no conclusion
could be reasonably drawn from them as to what suited
Athenians. It was of supreme importance that Athens,
as the noblest representative of Greece, should value
above all things a character for justice, generosity, and
public spirit. To attempt to bind her for all future
time by a law which might be a hurtful and dangerous

40

DFjMOSTU ENES.

check on patriotic impulses must he inexpedient. No
one could foresee what course politics might take, and it
was possible that citizens like Harmodius and Aris-
togeiton might again be needed. All human legislation
must take account of such possibilities and contin¬
gencies, improbable as they might seem at the time.
The law of Leptines was, in fact, an offence to Nemesis,
which ever waits on arrogance and presumption.”

These were some of the chief arguments with which
Demosthenes combated the reasonings of his opponent.
In one passage he reminds his audience how careful
Athens had been in the past of her good name.

“You have to consider not merely whether you love
money, but whether you love also a good name, which
you are more anxious after than money ; and not you
only, but your ancestors, as I can prove. For when they
had got wealth in abundance, they expended it all in
pursuit of honour. For glory’s sake they never shrank
from any danger, but persevered to the last, spending
even their private fortunes. Instead of a good name,
this law fastens an opprobrium on the commonwealth,
unworthy both of your ancestors and yourselves. It
begets three of the greatest reproaches — the reputa¬
tion of being envious, faithless, and ungrateful. That
it is altogether foreign to your character to establish a
law like this, I will endeavour to prove in a few words
by recounting one of the former acts of the State.
The Thirty Tyrants are said to have borrowed money
from the Lacedaemonians to attack the party in the

DEMOSTHENES EATERS POLITICAL LIFE. 41

Piraeus. When unanimity was restored, and these
troubles were composed, the Lacedaemonians sent am¬
bassadors and demanded payment of their money.
Upon this there arose a debate, and some contended
that the borrowers, the city party, should pay ; others
advised that it should be the first proof of harmony to
join in discharging the debt. The people, we know,
determined themselves to contribute, and share hi the
expense, to avoid breaking any article of their conven¬
tion. Then, were it not shameful if, at that tune, you
chose to contribute money for the benefit of persons
who had injured you, rather than break your word, yet
now, when it is in your power, without cost, to do
justice to your benefactors by repealing this law, you
should prefer to break your word ? ”

He argues that the envious, grudging spirit displayed
in the law is, of all things, most alien to Athenian
feeling.

“Every possible reproach should be avoided, but
most of all, that of being envious. Why? Because
envy is altogether the mark of a bad disposition, and
to have this feeling is wholly unpardonable. Besides,
abhorring, as our commonwealth does, everything dis¬
graceful, there is no reproach from which she is further
removed than from the imputation of being envious.
Observe how strong are the proofs. In the first place,
you are the only people who have state funerals for
the dead, and funeral orations in which you glorify the
actions of brave men. Such a custom is that of a people
which admires virtue, and does not envy others who are

42

D E M O ST 11 E N E S.

honoured for it. In the next place, you have ever
bestowed the highest rewards upon those who win the
garlands in gymnastic contests ; nor have you, because
hut few are born to partake of such rewards, envied
the parties receiving them, nor abridged your honours
on that account. Add to these striking evidences that
no one appears ever to have surpassed our State in
liberality — such munificence has she displayed in re¬
quiting services. All these are manifestations of justice,
virtue, magnanimity. Do not destroy the character for
which our State has all along been renowned ; do not,
in order that Leptines may weak his personal malice
upon some whom he dislikes, deprive the State and
yourselves of the honourable name which you have
enjoyed throughout all time. Regard this as a contest
purely for the dignity of Athens, whether it is to be
maintained the same as before, or to be impaired and
degraded.”

The following passage is near the conclusion of the
speech. He is arguing against the impolicy of binding
the State for the future by such a law : —

“To one thing more I beg your attention. This law
cannot be good which makes the same provision for the
future as the past. ‘No one shall be exempt,’ it says,
‘ not even the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogei-
ton.’ Good. ‘ Nor shall it be lawful to grant exemptions
hereafter.’ Not if similar men arise1? Blame former
doings as you may, know you also the future? Oh,
but we are far from expecting anything of the kind.
I trust we are ; but being human, our language and oiu*

DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 43

law should be such as not to shock religious sentiment ;
and while we look for good fortune, and implore
heaven to grant it, we will regard all fortune as sub¬
ject to human casualties. The future, I take it, is un¬
certain to all men, and small occasions are productive
of great events. Therefore we will be moderate in
prosperity, and show that we have an eye to the
future.”

It may be said that there is much of a modern tone
and character about this speech. Its arguments are
those of a constitutional lawyer and of a far-sighted
politician. It is quiet and temperate, and at the same
time singularly convincing. It was successful in its
immediate object, and it must have established the
reputation of Demosthenes as a political debater of the
first rank. From this time he must have felt but
little timidity or hesitation in addressing that critical
audience — the Athenian popular assembly.

CHAPTER V.

EARLY SPEECHES OF DEMOSTHENES ON FOREIGN POLICY.

Persia in the fourth century b. c. was a more consider¬
able power than we might have supposed from the
comparative ease with which it was overthrown by
Alexander. The Great King, as he was always called,
was in the possession of immense resources. Financially
he was much stronger than the Greek world, though his
military inferiority had been more than once clearly
proved. He was still looked on by the Greeks generally
with a sort of wondering awe. He ruled in some fashion
a vast empire, and held it together by means of satraps
and vassal princes, notwithstanding occasional serious
revolts. He had had indeed, in past days, to acknow¬
ledge the independence of the Asiatic Greeks ; still he
was always distinctly felt as a force in Greek politics,
with which from time to time he was brought into
contact. On the whole, he was regarded as an enemy ;
but the unfortunate want of anything like hearty union
among the states of Greece tended to weaken this feel¬
ing, and to make combined action against him all but
impossible. There was always, however, a vague fear
that he might some day, if violently provoked, crush

EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 45

the Greek world beneath the weight of a huge bar¬
barian invasion.

In the year 356 b.c., the second year of Athens’ war
with her revolted allies, this fear rose, at Athens at least,
to a positive panic. Greek generals, as we have seen,
occasionally found it convenient to take service under
some Persian satrap, for the sake of the liberal pay
on which they could confidently reckon. In the year
above mentioned, Chares was in command of a fleet
which Athens had sent out to put down her rebellious
subjects in the islands of the Aegean. lie was a man
thoroughly of the adventurer type ; and when he found
that he could not pay his troops, which were for the
most part foreign mercenaries, he carried off his arma¬
ment on his own responsibility to the aid of Artabanus,
the satrap of the country south of the Propontis, who
was then in revolt against the Great King. Artabanus
was, at the time, in sore need of help ; but Chares gained
for him a brilliant victory over the king’s forces, and
he received for himself and his soldiers a liberal re¬
ward. The proceeding was, of course, utterly irregular,
and gave great offence at Athens ; but the success re¬
conciled them to it. The King of Persia was naturally
very indignant, and sent an embassy to Athens to com¬
plain of this unprovoked aggression. Soon it was
rumoured that he was preparing a fleet of 300 galleys
to aid their revolted allies and to attack their city.
There was intense excitement. Peace was immediately
concluded with the allies, but there was a strong feeling
in favour of declaring war against Persia. Now, it
was said, was the time for an appeal to Panhellenic sen-

46

DEMOSTHENES.

timent, and to endeavour to unite Greece against her old
enemy. We can well imagine that such language was
likely to meet with a response in many quarters, and
that it might well seem patriotic, and even prudent.

In this case, again, Demosthenes thought it his duty
to protest. He did so in a speech delivered in 354 b.c.
He must have been, in all probability, on the un¬
popular side. He had, too, against him the opinion of
the famous and clever rhetorician, Isocrates, who had
urged in one of his pamphlets the expediency of a
Panhellenic combination against Persia. The party of
Eubulus, hacked up by a number of orators and dema¬
gogues, supported this policy. To Demosthenes it
seemed an idle dream — the preposterous imagination of
a knot of political adventurers. The speech in which
he opposed it is calm and statesmanlike. “ In no one
of his speeches,” says Mr Grote, “is the spirit of
practical wisdom more predominant than in this his
earliest known discourse to the public Assembly.” He
tells his excited countrymen some very plain home-
truths. “The Greeks,” he frankly says, “are too
jealous of each other to be capable of uniting in an
aggressive war. They might indeed do so in a war of
self-defence. Should Athens declare war, the King of
Persia would be able to purchase aid from the Greeks
themselves. Such a step would consequently lay bare
the worst weaknesses of the Greek world. Their right
policy was to put Athens in a posture of defence, that
she might not be attacked unprepared. They must re¬
organise their fleet. They must not shrink from personal
military service and lean upon foreign mercenaries.

EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 47

They must not rest contentedly on the glorious deeds of
their ancestors, hut uphold the dignity of their State by
themselves imitating their deeds, whatever temporary
sacrifices it might cost them. And they should seek
to rally round Athens a host of confederates, united to
her by the bonds of common interest and mutual con¬
fidence.” Some of these topics are such as, under
critical circumstances, it must have required much moral
courage to urge.

A few passages from the speech will give the reader
an idea of Demosthenes’ views about Persia, about the
difficulty of united action against that power, and the
immediate duties of the Athenians themselves : —

“ I hold the King,” he says, “to be the common
enemy of all the Greeks. Still I would not for this
reason advise you without the rest to undertake a war
against him. The Greeks themselves, I observe, are
not friends to one another. On the contrary, some
have more confidence in the King than in certain of
their own people. Such being the case, I deem it
expedient for you to see that the cause of war be
equitable and just, that all necessary preparations be
made, and that this should be the groundwork of your
resolution. Were there any plain proof that the King
of Persia was about to attack the Greeks, I think they
would join alliance, and be extremely grateful to those
who sided with them and defended them against him.
But if we rush into a quarrel before his intentions are
declared, I am afraid that we shall be driven into a
war with both — with the King and with the people

48

DEMOSTHENES.

whom we are anxious to protect. He will suspend his
designs, if he really has resolved to attack the Greeks,
will give money to some, and promise friendship; while
they, in the wish to carry on their own wars with
better success and intent on similar objects, will disre¬
gard the common safety of the Greek world. I be¬
seech you not to betray our country into such embar¬
rassment and folly. You, I perceive, cannot adopt the
same policy in regard to the king as the other Greeks
can. Many of them, I conceive, may very well pursue
their selfish interests, and be utterly indifferent to the
national welfare. But for you it would be dishonour¬
able, even though you had suffered wrong, so to punish
the wrong-doers as to let any of them fall under the
power of the barbarian. Under these circumstances
we must be careful not to engage in the war on un¬
equal terms, and not to allow him whom we suppose to
be planning mischief against the Greeks to get the
credit of appearing their friend.”

Although Athens is rich, he warns the people that
those riches will not be forthcoming on a mere vague
rumour of hostilities from Persia. When the danger
is seen to be really imminent, then it will be time for
the State to put a pressure on its wealthy citizens.

“You invite the Greeks to join you. But if you
will not act as they wish, how can you expect they will
obey your call, when some of them have no good-will
towards you ? Because, forsooth, they will hear from
you that Persia has designs on them'? Pray, do you

EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 49

imagine that they don’t foresee it themselves ? I am
sure they do ; but at present the fear outweighs the
enmity which some of them bear towards you and
towards each other. Athens contains treasures equal
to the rest of the Greek states put together. But the
owners of wealth are so minded that if all your orators
alarmed them with the intelligence that the King was
coming, that he was at hand, that the danger was in¬
evitable — if, besides the orators, a number of persons
gave oracular warning — so far from contributing, they
would not even discover their wealth or acknowledge
its possession. But if they knew that what is so ter¬
rible in report was really begun, there is not a man so
foolish who would not be ready to give and foremost
to contribute. I say that we have money against tho
time of actual need, but not before. And therefore 1
advise you not to search for it now. Your right course
is to complete your other preparations. Let the rich
retain their riches for the present (it cannot be in better
hands for the State) ; and should the crisis come, then
take it from them in voluntary contributions.”

The speech is thus concluded : —

“ My advice is, do not be over-alarmed at the war ;
neither be led to commence it. As far as I see, no other
state of Greece has reason to fear it. All the Greeks
know that so long as they regarded Persia as their
common enemy, they were at peace one with another,
and enjoyed much prosperity. But since they have
looked on the King as a friend, and quarrelled about
disputes with each other, they have suffered worse

a.c.s.s. vol. iv.

D

50

DEMOSTHENES.

calamities than any one could possibly imprecate upon
them. Should we fear a man whom both fortune and
heaven declare to be an unprofitable friend and a useful
enemy 1 If it were possible with one heart and with
united forces to attack him alone, such an injury I
could not pronounce to be an injustice. But since this
cannot be, I say we must be cautious, and not afford
the King a pretence for vindicating the rights of the
other Greeks. Do not expose the melancholy condi¬
tion of Greece by convoking her people when you can¬
not persuade them, and making war when you cannot
carry it on. Only keep quiet, fear nothing, and pre¬
pare yourselves. My advice in brief is this : Prepare
yourselves against existing enemies ; and you ought
with the same force to be able to resist the King and
all others, if they attempt to injure you. But never
begin a wrong in word or deed. Let us look that our
actions, and not our speeches on the platform, be
worthy of our ancestors. If you pursue this course,
you will do service not only to yourselves, but also to
those who give the opposite counsel ; for you will not
be angry with them afterwards for errors now com¬
mitted/’

In this speech Demosthenes may be said to fore¬
shadow the general character of his foreign policy. He
did not wish Athens to be aggressive, but simply to
hold her own with a firm hand. This, he thought, she
might well be persuaded to do. Grand schemes of
Panhellenic union against the empire of Persia, such
as floated before the imagination of Isocrates, and were,

EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 51

through his influence, fascinating the minds of a certain
class of political enthusiasts, he scouted as Quixotic.
Above all things, he aimed at being a practical states¬
man; and of this the speech from which we have just
been quoting, delivered by him in the commencement
of his public life, is decisive evidence.

In the following year he delivered a speech which
is of considerable interest as showing his view of Greek
politics at the tune. It was important, he thought, for
Athens that there should be, as we say, a balance of
power in the Greek world, and that neither Sparta nor
Thebes should be too strong. I have explained the
circumstances under which Megalopolis was founded
in 371 b.c., after the great battle of Leuctra, under
Theban influence, as the metropolis of Arcadia, and
specially as a check on Sparta. The establishment of
this city, together with the loss of the Messenian terri¬
tory, which soon followed, was a terrible blow to that
state. Sparta, in fact, for the time, was reduced to a
second-rate power. She was hemmed in by enemies
on the north and on the west. It was hardly to be
expected that she would acquiesce in such humiliation.
And so, in the year 353 b.c., her king, Archidamus,
began to plan a counter-revolution, which should undo
the work of Leuctra by the destruction of Megalopolis
and the reconquest of Messenia. It was, however,
necessary for him to have some pretext which should
commend itself generally to Greek opinion. He was
meditating an entire unsettlement of the affairs of the
Peloponnese in the interest of Sparta; and this, he
knew, would not be allowed if it were to be openly

52

DEMOSTHENES.

avowed. Accordingly he put forward the policy of a
general restoration of ancient rights to the different
states. Athens would thus recover the border town of
Oropus, now in the possession of Thebes, the loss of
which had much vexed and distressed her. Thus, it
was hoped, she might he disposed to favour the Spar¬
tan proposals, which, as a matter of course, the anti-
Theban party, then very strong, would hack up to the
utmost of its power. The result which such a policy
would have on Megalopolis, as a harrier in Sparta’s
way, was kept in the background. The new city must
have inevitably dwindled down into an insignificant
township, and the purpose with which it had been
founded would have been frustrated.

Envoys came to Athens both from Sparta and from
Megalopolis. There was a warm and angry debate.
The bitter hatred Athenians had always felt towards
Thebans, coupled with the immediate desire of recover¬
ing Oropus, was enough to recommend the Spartan
proposals. It seems strange that the memory of what
Athens had suffered from the hands, of Sparta did not
at once decide the question, and open the eyes of the
people to the dangers of Sparta’s insidious policy.
Some there were who saw through it and denounced
it. Demosthenes was among the number. He was
with the “Opposition;” and it appears that on this
occasion he failed. He supported the cause of Mega¬
lopolis — the cause, in fact, of Thebes — arguing that it
would be a grave political blunder to assist Sparta in
recovering the position which she held in Greece pre¬
vious to the battle of Leuctra. His speech is subtle

EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 53

and ingenious, and must have been convincing to those
who would not let themselves be carried away by an
unreasoning antipathy to everything Theban.

“ The Lacedaemonians,” he says, “ are acting a
crafty part. They say they cannot retain the grati¬
tude they feel for you for helping them in a time of
urgent need unless you now allow them to commit an
injustice. However repugnant it may be to the designs
of the Spartans that we should adopt the Arcadian
alliance ” (that is, the alliance of Megalopolis), “ surely
their gratitude for having been saved by us in a crisis
of extreme peril ought to outweigh their resentment
for being checked in their aggression now.”

As to the bait held out by Sparta to Athens in the
prospect of the recovery of Oropus, he says : —

“ My opinion is, first, that our State, even without
sacrificing any Arcadian people to the Lacedaemonians,
may recover Oropus, both with their aid, if they are
minded to act justly, and that of others who hold
Theban usurpation to be intolerable. Secondly, sup¬
posing that it were evident to us that, unless we permit
the Lacedaemonians to reduce the Peloponnese, we can¬
not obtain possession of Oropus, allow me to say, I
deem it more expedient to let Oropus alone than to
abandon Messenia and the Peloponnese to the Lace¬
daemonians. I imagine the question between us and
them would soon be about other matters. . . .

“ I am sure, to judge from rational observation —
and I think most Athenians will agree with me — that

54

DEMOSTHENES.

if the Lacedaemonians take Megalopolis, Messenia will
be in danger; and if they take Messenia, I predict
that you and the Thebans will be allies. Then it is
much better and more honourable for us to receive the
Theban confederacy as our friends and resist Lacedae¬
monian ambition, than, out of reluctance to save the
allies of Thebes, to abandon them now, and have after¬
wards to save Thebes herself and be in fear also for our
own safety. I cannot but regard it as perilous to our
State should the Lacedaemonians take Megalopolis and
again become strong. For I see they have undertaken
the war not to defend themselves, but to recover their
ancient power. What were their designs when they
possessed that power, you perhaps know better than I,
and therefore may have reason to be alarmed.”

This was plain speaking, and sound, statesmanlike
advice. It could not have been the interest of Athens
to let Sparta regain her old supremacy, as she was
certainly striving to do. It was her interest, as Demos¬
thenes says towards the conclusion of his speech, not to
abandon Megalopolis and the Arcadians, and to make
them feel (should they survive the struggle) that they
had owed their deliverance not to themselves or to any
other people but the Athenians. As affairs turned
out, the dangers he apprehended never came to pass.
He could not persuade his countrymen to support
Megalopolis. They simply stood neutral. The Lace¬
daemonians waged war for two years in Arcadia, and
gained some partial successes, but they could not carry
out their designs. Thebes, though she had occupation

EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 55

for her soldiers in other quarters, contrived to send
an army into the Peloponnese ; and after some inde¬
cisive engagements, a truce was concluded, which left
matters as they were. Megalopolis and the Arcadian
confederacy escaped the peril with which Sparta had
threatened them. But the result to Athens and to
Greece was unsatisfactory. Subsequently, when they
apprehended a similar danger from Sparta, they did
not think it worth their while to ask help from Athens.
They did not care to he refused a second time, and on
this occasion they applied to Philip. He was not the
man to miss such an opportunity ; and thus Mace¬
donian influence was brought to hear on the affairs of
the Peloponnese. This was the unfortunate conse¬
quence of the indifference of Athens to the progress
of Spartan ambition. She gave the impression to the
Greek world that she was not in earnest in wishing to
maintain the liberties of the states of the Peloponnese,
although it had been her constant profession to do so.
This was the inference drawn from her refusal to ally
herself with Megalopolis against Sparta. Had she
been guided by the counsels of Demosthenes, she
would have assumed a dignified political attitude, and,
as events turned out, have put a stumbling-block in
the way of her future enemy and destroyer. It is
true, indeed, that at that time there was no distinct
cause of apprehension from Macedon, and there is not
even any allusion to Philip in this speech of Demos¬
thenes. "We may therefore conclude that as yet he
himself feared nothing in that quarter. Still, it is not
the less to his credit that he urged Athens to adopt a

56

DEMOSTHENES.

policy which would have won for her the respect and
confidence of many of the Greeks, and. might have had
the effect of excluding the intrusion of a most danger¬
ous foreign influence into an important part of the
Greek world.

CHAPTER VI.

FIRST SPEECH OF DEMOSTHENES AGAINST PHILIP - SPEECH

FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE PEOPLE OF RHODES.

The year 352 b.c. brought with it the beginnings of
great events. In that year, for the first time, the king
of Macedon really showed that he might possibly be
entertaining designs fraught with peril to the Greek
world. He had prominently intervened in Greek
politics. He had taken a conspicuous part in the
Sacred or Holy War between the Thebans and Phocians.
Once, indeed, he had been utterly defeated by the
Phocian leader, Onomarclius, and had been driven
back into his kingdom with loss and disaster, though
report made him say that “ he did not fly, but fell
back, like the battering-ram, to give a more violent
shock another time.” He speedily again entered Thes¬
saly with a more powerful army ; and with the help of
his allies in that country and of the admirable Thes¬
salian cavalry, he won at Pagasae a decisive victory
over Onomarchus, who perished in the flight. How
he was completely master of Thessaly, a country which
ought to have been under the control of a Greek state,
and in which, of late, Theban influence had been

58

DEMOSTHENES.

supreme. Maced om was thus in effect the principal
land power to the north of the Peloponnese ; and her
king had both displayed military genius, and had
shown that he was in command of an army with
which it was already a question whether any single
Greek state could cope. The battle just fought was
on a very considerable scale, and could not have failed
to suggest unpleasant apprehensions to the mind of
every thinking politician. Philip might very possibly
follow up his success with an instant invasion of
northern Greece. He did in fact advance on Ther-
mopylae ; but Athens had forestalled him, and the
famous pass was guarded by a force before which he
thought it prudent to retire. The Athenians exulted
in the reflection that they had once again been the
deliverers of Greece. But their joy was doomed to be
of very brief duration.

For a few months the king of Macedon employed
himself in securing a firm hold on Thessaly. Mean¬
while his cruisers and privateers, of which he had
contrived to raise a formidable number, infested the
northern islands and coasts of the Aegean, to the great
annoyance and injury of Athenian trade. In the
autumn of 352 b.c. he hurried northwards, entered
Thrace, and took advantage of its intestine feuds, with
a view to getting the country under his control. In
November news reached Athens, the serious import of
which could not be misunderstood. Philip was be¬
sieging Herseum — a place probably on the northern
coast of the Propontis, to the west of Perinthus. It
was contiguous to the Thracian Chersonese, occupied,

FI MSI' SPEECH AGAINST PHILIP.

59

as we have seen, by Athenian colonists, and, as it
appears, actually garrisoned by an Athenian force.
The act was thus one of almost open hostility, and
practically equivalent to a declaration of war. But
what made it singularly alarming was, that it was a
most dangerous menace to the Athenian interests on
the north of the Aegean. It meant, in fact, peril to
the corn trade of Athens, and high prices and possibly
famine to the citizens. It showed too, clearly enough,
that Philip, if he could, would rob the city of its most
valuable outlying possessions. Thus the eyes of the
people ought to have been thoroughly opened to the
danger which hung over them ; but as soon as they
knew that Philip was ill, and next heard a report of
his death, they fell back into their love of the easy,
comfortable life at Athens, with its pleasures and
amusements, and flattered themselves with the notion
that the crisis was finally past. The peace party, with
Eubulus at its head, always strong, was now for the
moment stronger than ever ; and its best representative,
the really patriotic Pliocion, was too cynical to believe
in the possibility of his countrymen being roused to
the degree of effort and endurance which a serious
struggle with Macedon would demand from them.

As soon as it was known that Philip had recovered,
and was as active and aggressive as ever, there were, it
appears, several acrimonious debates in the Assembly,
with grievous complaints as to the inefficiency of the
generals and of their troops. Athens still clung to her
maritime supremacy, and it was felt to be disgraceful
that this should be threatened by a barbarian. Still,

60

DEMOSTHENES.

her public men had not the moral courage to tell the
people plainly the only way by which such a disgrace
could he ended. It was painful to speak to them of
personal service on shipboard, with all its hardships
and risks. Demosthenes, in his speech on the war
with Persia, had hinted, not obscurely, at this neces¬
sity. He did so far more clearly and persistently on
the occasion we have been describing. At the age of
about thirty he spoke the memorable harangue known
as the First Philippic.

The speech shows that he had now quite made up
his mind on the subject of the foreign policy of Athens.
A year ago he had not, as we may reasonably infer,
regarded Macedon as a source of real danger to the
freedom of the Greek world. He was now convinced
that Philip had designs beyond the mere establishment
of a compact and powerful northern kingdom. He
takes a broad view of the political situation, and speaks
not merely as a citizen of the foremost state of Greece,
but as a Greek on behalf of Greek security and inde¬
pendence.

It was assuredly much to the honour of Demosthenes
that, as a young politician, he sounded a distinct note
of warning, which he must have known would have
jarred on the easy-going temper of his countrymen.
Their affairs, he plainly tells them, were in a very bad
plight; but there was hope, just because they had not
as yet really exerted themselves. Therefore there was
no reason for despair. Philip’s power, indeed, was
already great : he had Thessaly at his feet ; he had
defeated a Greek army under a brave and experienced

FIRST SPEECH AGAINST PHILIP.

61

leader; he was now threatening the Chersonese and
the northern coasts of the yEgean, and with his fleet
was harassing the commerce of Athens ; still, he was
not a more formidable foe than Sparta had been ; and
the fact that he was formidable at all was due to their
own voluntary supineness, which, for the sake of
Greece and for the glory of Athens, they must shake
off once and for ever. Otherwise, even if rumour had
truly asserted Philip’s death, they would soon raise up
against themselves another Philip equally terrible.

“ You must not despond,” he says at the beginning
of his speech, “ under your present circumstances,
wretched as they are ; for that which is worst in them
as regards the past, is best for the future. My mean¬
ing is this— your affairs are amiss because you do no¬
thing which is required. If the result were the same,
although you performed your duties, there would be
no hope of amendment. Consider, further, what is
known to you by hearsay, and what men of experience
remember. Not long ago, how vast a power the Lace-
da3monians possessed ! Yet how nobly and admirably
did you consult the dignity of Athens, and undertook
the war against them for the rights of Greece ! Why
do I mention this 1 To show and convince you that
nothing, if you take precaution, is to be feared ; noth¬
ing, if you are negligent, goes as you desire. Take, for
examples, the strength of the Lacedaemonians, which
you overcame by minding your duty ; and the insolent
ambition of this Philip now, which utterly confounds
us through our neglect of our interest. If any of you

62

DEMOSTHENES.

think the man a formidable foe, looking at the vastness
of his present power and our loss of all our strongholds,
that is reasonable enough; only you should reflect that
there was a time when we held Pydna, and Potidsea,
and Methone, with all the adjacent country, and that
many of the nations now in league with Philip were
independent and free, and preferred our friendship to
his. Had Philip then taken it into his head that
Athens was too formidable a foe to fight, when she
had so many fortresses to threaten his country, and he
was destitute of allies, nothing that he has accomplished
would he have attempted, and never would he have
acquired so large a dominion. But he saw clearly
enough that such places are the open prizes of war ; —
that the possessions of the absent belong to the pre¬
sent, those of the careless to the adventurous who
shrink not from toil. Acting on that principle, he has
won everything, and keeps it either by way of con¬
quest or by friendly attachment and alliance ; for all
men will side with and respect those whom they see
prepared and willing to make proper exertions. If
you will adopt this principle now, though you have
not hitherto done so — and if every man, when he can
and ought to give his service to the State, be ready to
give it without excuse — if the rich will contribute, if
the able-bodied will enlist, — in a word, plainly, if you
will become your own masters, and cease each expect¬
ing to do nothing himself, while his neighbour does
everything for him, — then will you, with heaven’s
permission, recover your own, and get back what has
been frittered away, and chastise Philip. Do not im-

FIRST SPEECH AGAINST PHILIP.

63

agine that his empire is everlastingly secured to him as
to a god. There are who hate and fear and envy him,
even among those that seem most friendly; and all
feelings natural to other men exist, we may assume, in
his confederates. But now they are all cowed, for they
have no refuge because of your tardiness and indolence,
which I say you must abandon forthwith.”

On the subject of the preparations they ought to
make, Demosthenes thus advises them : —

“First, we must provide fifty war-ships, and hold
ourselves prepared in case of emergency to embark and
sail. There must, too, be an equipment of transports
for half the cavalry, and sufficient boats. This we
must have in readiness against his sudden marches
from his own country to Thermopylae, the Chersonese,
Olynthus, and anywhere he likes. For he should be
made to have the idea that possibly you may rouse
yourselves out of this over- supineness and start off as
you did to Euboea, and very lately to Thermopylae.
Such an armament, I say, ought instantly to be agreed
upon and provided.”

In the following passage, the want of skill and
method with which Athens was carrying on the con¬
test is strikingly exposed : —

“You, Athenians, with larger means than any people,
have never up to this day made proper use of any of
them, and your war with Philip is exactly like the
boxing of barbarians. With them, the party struck
first is always feeling for the blow ; strike him any-

64

DEMOSTHENES.

where else, there go his hands again; ward or look
you in the face he cannot and will not. So with you.
If you hear of Philip in the Chersonese or at Ther¬
mopylae, you vote to send a force there ; if you hear of
him somewhere else, you run, so to say, after his heels
up and down, and are, in fact, commanded by him.
Ho plan have you devised for the war; no circum¬
stance do you see beforehand, but only when you learn
that something is done or is about to be done. For¬
merly, perhaps, this was allowable ; now it is come to
a crisis to be borne no longer. It seems as if some
god, in shame at our proceedings, had put this activity
into Philip. For had he been willing to remain quiet
in possession of his conquests and prizes, and attempted
nothing further, some of you, I think, would be satis¬
fied with a state of things which brands our nation
with the shame of cowardice and of the foulest dis¬
grace. But by continually encroaching and grasping
after more, he may possibly rouse you, if you have not
altogether despaired. I marvel, indeed, that not one
of you notices with concern and anger that the begin¬
ning of this war was to chastise Philip ; the end is to
protect ourselves against his attacks.”

Towards the conclusion of his speech, Demosthenes
reproaches the people with their silly fondness for
gossiping about Philip’s reported movements, and bids
them remember that he now is and long has been their
enemy : —

“ Some among ourselves go about and say that
Philip is concerting with the Lacedaemonians the de-

FIRST SPEECH AGAINST PHILIP.

G5

struction of Thebes and the dissolution of free states;
some, that he has sent envoys to the King;* others,
that he is fortifying cities in Illyria. So we wander
about, each inventing stories. For my part, I quite
believe that Philip is thoroughly intoxicated with the
magnitude of his exploits, and that he has many such
dreams in his imagination. Still, most assuredly his
plan of action is not such as to let the greatest fools
among us know what his intentions are. For the
greatest fools are these newsmongers. Let us dismiss
such talk, and remember only that Philip is an enemy
who robs us of our own, and has long insulted us ;
that whenever we have expected aid from any quarter,
it has been found hostile ; and that the future depends
on ourselves ; and, unless we are willing to fight him
there, we shall perhaps be compelled to fight here.
This let us remember, and then we shall have deter¬
mined wisely, and have done with idle conjectures.
You need not pry into the future, but assure your¬
selves that it will be disastrous, unless you give your
mind to your duty, and are willing to act as becomes
you.”

The only result of this speech was, that a paltry
four or five ships were sent to the Chersonese under a
mercenary and somewhat disreputable general, Cliari-
demus. The fact was, that there was a numerous party
at Athens who never could be persuaded that Philip
would some day be a really dangerous enemy. Persia
was the power of which they were always thinking as

* The king of Persia.

E

A.C.S.S. vol. iv.

66

DEMOSTHENES.

the great source of peril to Greece. There were still
rumours flying about as to the gigantic preparations
which the King was said to be making against them to
revenge the defeats of Marathon and Salamis. Possibly
such reports were stimulated by Philip himself. Next
there were those who were, in fact, Philip’s paid agents,
now, no doubt, a considerable class in several Greek
states. And, last of all, there was incredulity and
apathy among the Athenians themselves. All these
adverse influences were too strong for Demosthenes,
and his appeal to the patriotism of his countrymen
was made in vain.

In the speech we have been describing, Demosthenes
dwelt on the duty of Athens to put herself forward as
the champion of Greece and of its free states. In a
speech delivered some months or perhaps a year after¬
wards, he reminds her that she ought to be the cham¬
pion of democracy and of popular government. Prom
this point of view, the oration entitled “ On the
freedom of the people of Rhodes ” has much interest.
"We rather gather, from the general tone of the speech,
that Philip’s restlessness had ceased for a time, or at
all events that he had something else to do than to
threaten the possessions and the commerce of Athens.
It was made on the occasion of a deputation from the
democratic party in Rhodes, who wished the island to
pass again under Athenian control.

Rhodes had more than once been in alliance with
Athens — a connection which practically implied a cer¬
tain degree of subjection and dependence. With the
close of the Peloponnesian War and the triumph of

FIRST SPEECH AGAINST PHILIP.

67

Sparta, it was put under an oligarchy, which meant
Spartan control. About the year 396 b.c. the Athenian
general Conon, who had a powerful fleet in the Aegean,
again forced the Rhodians to become the allies of
Athens. Four years afterwards a Spartan fleet appeared,
and this was the signal for another revolution in the
government. There was, it seems, one of those horrible
incidents with which Greek history is so often dis¬
figured — a massacre of the democratic leaders and of
the adherents of Athens. But the oligarchy now im¬
posed on the island did not last long. The Spartan
fleet was defeated, and Rhodes and most of the islands
of the Aegean returned to the Athenian alliance. We
may take for granted that democracy was re-established.
Then came, in 358 b.c., the Social War, the war between
Athens and her allies, which broke up the second
Athenian empire. Of this, Rhodes was the origin.
Chares, the Athenian general, of whom we have
already had occasion to speak, provoked and disgusted
the Rhodians by plunder and extortion. Cos and
Chios had similar grievances; and the three islands
threw off their connection with Athens, and began the
Social War — Rhodes being the prime mover. They
were helped by Mausolus, king of Caria and a vassal
prince of the Persian empire. He was a man of con¬
siderable ambition, and his idea was to annex Rhodes,
which was adjacent to his own territories. It was first
necessary to detach it from the Athenian alliance ; and
Mausolus contrived, by intrigues with the oligarchical
party in the island, to introduce a Carian garrison ; and
once more the government was revolutionised. The

68

DEMOSTHENES.

people and their leaders found themselves in a hopeless
plight, now that they had renounced their connection
with Athens, while the oligarchy was supported by
Persian influence through Mausolus. When that
king died and his queen Artemisia succeeded, the
government became so intolerably oppressive that the
popular party ventured to send an embassy to Athens,
and humbly to implore relief. It was hardly to be
expected that the embassy would be well received.
The Athenians felt that Rhodes had inflicted a grievous
injury on them by plunging them in a disastrous war,
which had ended in dissolving their confederacy. They
were in no mood to listen to the present petition.
Nevertheless it was supported by Demosthenes.

It is a hard matter to soothe the temper of people
when they feel, as the Athenians now did, that they
have suffered much from ingratitude. Popular as¬
semblies, under such circumstances, are apt to be
peculiarly angry and excited. All that Demosthenes
could do was to appeal to the better and more generous
sentiments of his countrymen. They ought not, he
argued, to brood over the wrongs done to them by
these insignificant islanders, but to think only of what
was due to Athens and to Greece. It was alike their
duty and interest to vindicate the freedom of an op¬
pressed Greek people, and to stand by the policy of
supporting popular and democratic government against
oligarchs and tyrants. Unless they resolved to act
thus, the political constitution of Athens would itself
be imperilled. If all democracies were put down, their
own would fall at last. Demosthenes, we see, was

SPEECH FOR THE FREEDOM OF RHODES. 69

heartily in sympathy with democracy, and regarded it
as the special glory of Athens to be its champion and
upholder. If at times he felt its weak side, and its
tendency to vacillation and irresolution, still he never
seems to have doubted that it was on the whole the
best and most manly type of government.

Such were his reasons for counselling the assembly
to listen favourably to the request for aid from the
Ehodians. In the following passage these views are
clearly expressed : —

“ Observe, men of Athens, that you have waged
many wars both against democracies and against
oligarchies. This you know without my telling ; but
for what causes you have been at war with either,
perhaps not one of you considers. What are the
causes? Against democratical states your wars have
been either for private grievances, when you could not
make public satisfaction, or for territory or bound¬
aries, or a point of honour, or for the leadership of
Greece. Against oligarchies you fought, not for such
things, but for your constitution and for freedom.
Therefore I would not hesitate to say that I think it
better that all the Greeks should be your enemies with
a popular government than your friends under an oli¬
garchical. Tor with free men I consider you would
have no difficulty in making peace when you chose ;
but with people under an oligarchy, even friendship I
hold to be insecure. It is impossible that the few can
be attached to the many, the seekers of power to the
lovers of constitutional equality. I marvel none of

70

D EMOS THEN E S.

you consider that, when the Rhodians and nearly all
people are drawn into this slavery, onr constitution
must he in the same peril. If all other governments
are oligarchical, it is impossible that they will let your
democracy alone. They know too well that no other
people will bring things back to freedom; therefore
they will wish to destroy a government from which
they apprehend mischief to themselves. Ordinary
wrong-doers you may regard as enemies to the suffer¬
ers ; while they who subvert constitutions and transform
them into oligarchies must be looked upon as the com¬
mon enemies of all lovers of freedom.”

In the opinion of Demosthenes it thus appears
that oligarchy was in fact slavery, and wholly alien
to the Greek genius. The memory of the Athens of
Pericles was deeply impressed on his mind. But
he felt he was not addressing a people singularly
prone to be misled. He hints plainly in this speech
at the existence of an unpatriotic faction in the
State.

“It is difficult for you,” he says, “ to adopt right
measures. All other men have one battle to fight — -
namely, against their open and avowed enemies. You
have a double contest — that which the rest have, and
also a prior and a more arduous one. You must in
counsel overcome a faction which acts among you in
systematic opposition to the State. Men who desert
the politics handed down to them by their ancestors,
and support oligarchical measures, should be degraded

SPEECH FOR T1IE FREEDOM OF RHODES. 71

and deprived of constitutional privileges, and disquali¬
fied from being your political advisers.”

Again Demosthenes failed. The bitterness of Athe¬
nian feeling towards the ungrateful islanders made the
people blind to higher considerations, and Rhodes re¬
mained in the hands of an oligarchy. It was still
subject to Caria, and was thus really a Persian de¬
pendency.

CHAPTER VII.

PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS - SPEECHES OF DEMOSTHENES ON

BEHALF OF THE OLYNTHIANS.

When Demosthenes, some time in the year 352 b.c.,
made his first speech against Philip, there were good
grounds for an uneasy feeling throughout the Greek
world as to the king’s possible movements and designs.
He had already raised Macedon to a position it had
never before held. It had become a distinct power
in the politics of Greece. For a while, however, the
usually active Philip seemed to be really resting from
his labours, and next to nothing was heard of him.
Demosthenes does not so much as allude to him in his
speech “for the freedom of the people of Rhodes.” We
may fairly infer from his silence that anything like
serious apprehensions at Athens of peril from “ the
barbarian,” as Philip was called, had died away. The
peace party, always strong, and able to make out a
plausible case for itself, would thus be strengthened ;
and it would not be easy, even in the face of manifest
danger, thoroughly to rouse the Athenians to a sense of
the duty which they owed both to themselves and to
Greece.

PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS.

73

Philip was by this time a powerful prince ; hut still
he was as yet barely a match for Athens, had she
chosen to put forth her full strength. He had an
efficient army and a good revenue, and he also had
the luck to have other collateral advantages. He had
tools and agents in several Greek states ; and he had
practically on his side at Athens very many of the rich
and well-to-do citizens, who shrank from the idea of
a war which required personal service and exertion.
It was perfectly clear that a contest with him would
have been a serious undertaking. At the same time,
his position, though strong, was not altogether secure.
He had, as we have seen, possessed himself of some of
the coast towns, and he had a fleet in the Aegean.
Athens should never have allowed him to advance to
this point. She had flung away opportunities ; but
even now it was not too late to check him with the
help of a seasonable alliance. As yet he had no hold
on the district known as Chalcidice, which juts out
with its three peninsulas into the north-west of the
Aegean. It was a valuable and commanding strip of
country; and it contained thirty Greek towns, of
which the chief was the city Olynthus, at the
head of the Toronsean gulf. Some of these towns
regarded themselves as dependencies of Olynthus,
and formed what was known as the Olynthian
confederacy. There was a time when even Pella,
now the capital of Macedonia, was included in their
number. Olynthus, indeed, had been quite the most
powerful city in the north of the Aegean, and far too
proud to submit to the supremacy of either Sparta or

74

DEMOSTHENES.

Athens. Sparta with much difficulty forced it, in
379 B. c., into the Lacedaemonian confederacy; and
Athens, about ten years later, very much weakened its
influence by taking from it some of its territory and
of its subject-towns. Still, however, it was prosperous
and flourishing; and it could, at an extremity, bring
into the field a considerable military force, especially
of cavalry. Although it owed Athens a grudge, it had,
as we have seen, proposed alliance when it saw its
neighbour, Amphipolis, pass into the hands of Philip.
Athens declined the offer, and Philip was clever enough
temporarily to conciliate the goodwill of the Olynth-
ians by a trifling concession of territory, — intending, no
doubt, at the first convenient moment, to pick a quar¬
rel with them and annex the whole district. It must
have been easy for him, in the case of a city immedi¬
ately in his own neighbourhood, to have his partisans
among the citizens ; and it was to this that he was in¬
debted for his nltimate success. The towns, too, which
were connected with Olynthus by the loose tie of feder¬
ation, were no doubt singularly open to his intrigues.
Still, there was the feeling that he might become a
dangerous aggressor; and accordingly Olynthus decided
on a change of policy, and, in 352 b.c., withdrew itself
from the Macedonian alliance. The next step was to
conclude peace with Athens, and even to show a wish
for a yet closer union with that state. Athens, too,
now saw the advantage of such a union, and, indeed,
actually made overtures to that effect ; but Olynthus
was not quite prepared to commit itself definitely
to an Athenian alliance, which it well knew would

PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS.

75

be equivalent to a declaration of hostility against
Philip.

Before long, however, — in the year b.c. 350, as it
seems, — Philip left the Olynthians no alternative but
that of seeking powerful support. He made them feel
that they were in imminent danger by a sudden and
unprovoked attack on one of those cities of Chalcidice
which would naturally look to Olynthus for sympathy
and protection. Their eyes were now completely
opened, and they instantly sent off an embassy to
Athens. Philip, indeed, tried to persuade them by
envoys that he had no intention of making war on
them ; but he could not blind them. They felt sure
that they might count on a favourable reception for
their envoys at Athens, and on the prospect of assist¬
ance. Nor were they disappointed. It was impossible
for the Athenians to neglect such an opportunity.
They had themselves lately proposed such an alliance,
and now it was offered them. There could be no mis¬
take as to the critical nature of the situation. Philip
had attacked and taken a Greek city, and it was hardly
possible to doubt that he was feeling his way to the
conquest and annexation of the entire peninsula of
Chalcidice, with its thirty towns. Were he to be suc¬
cessful, it was clear that his power would be immensely
increased. Equally clear was it that Olynthus, if well
supported, might effectually stop his further progress.
Indeed, so sanguine were the Athenians, that the gen¬
eral talk now was about punishing Philip for his per¬
fidy. Only one statesman and orator of any note,
Demades, who was rarely to be found on the patriotic

I

76 DEMOSTHENES.

side, and was subsequently in all probability a mere
creature of Philip’s, spoke against the proposed alli¬
ance.

It was on this occasion that Demosthenes, in the
latter half probably of the year 350 b.c., delivered
three memorable speeches, commonly known as the
“ Olynthiacs.” He must have felt that the convictions
of the people were with him ; and yet at the same time
he lets us see, by his general tone, that he ahnost de¬
spaired of being able to stir them to decisive action.
All that they could be persuaded to do was to send
thirty galleys and 2000 mercenaries. This poor little
force could not stop Philip from continuing his
attacks on the Greek towns of Chalcidice. He had
not yet entered Olynthian territory, or even declared
war against the city; but Olynthus was sufficiently
alarmed to send a second embassy to Athens, begging
for more effectual help. A large force was now de¬
spatched ; but it consisted of mercenaries, and, unfor¬
tunately for Athens, it was under the command of a
man who, though he had some military talent, was so
disreputable in his life that he utterly disgusted the
Olynthians.

In the speech which was probably first delivered,
Demosthenes seeks to encourage his countrymen to
take a hopeful view of affairs by pointing out to them
how it really was that Philip had risen to power, and
how numerous were the elements of weakness in his
kingdom and government.

“ He has risen by conciliating and cajoling the sim-

PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS.

77

plicity of every people which knew him not. When
one has grown strong, as he has, by rapacity and
artifice, on the first pretext, the slightest reason, all
is overturned and broken up. If you will per¬
form your duties properly, not only will it appear
that Philip’s alliances are weak and precarious, hut
the poor state of his native empire and power will he
revealed. To speak roundly, the Macedonian power
is very well as a help, as it was for you in the time of
Timotheus against the Olynthians. For them, too,
against Potidaea, it was an important alliance. Lately,
as you know, it aided the Thessalians in their broils
and troubles against the regnant house ; and indeed the
accession of any power, however small, is undoubtedly
useful. But of itself Macedon is feeble, and has num¬
berless deficiencies. The very operations which seem
to constitute Philip’s greatness — his wars and his ex¬
peditions — have made it more insecure than it was
originally. Do not imagine that Philip and his subjects
have the same likings. He craves glory — makes that
his passion ; is ready for any consequence of adventure
and peril — preferring, as he does, to a life of safety, the
honour of achieving what no Macedonian king ever
did before. They have no share in the glorious result :
ever harassed by these excursions, they suffer and toil
without ceasing ; they have no leisure for their employ¬
ments or private affairs, and cannot so much as dispose
of their hard earnings, the markets of the country
being closed on account of the war. We may easily
infer from all this what is the general Macedonian feel¬
ing towards Philip. His mercenaries and guards, in-

78

DEMOSTHENES.

deed, have the reputation of admirable and 'well-trained
soldiers ; but, as I heard from one who had been born
in the country, they are no better than others. If some
of them are experienced in battles and campaigns,
Philip is jealous of such men, and drives them away —
so my informant tells me — wishing to keep the glory of
all action to himself. Or again, if a man is generally
good and virtuous, unable to bear Philip’s daily intem¬
perance, drunkenness, and indecency, he is pushed
aside and accounted as nobody. The rest about him
are brigands and parasites, and men of that character
who will get drunk and perform dances which I scruple
to name before you. My information is undoubtedly
true ; for persons whom all scouted here as worse rascals
than mountebanks, — Callias, the town-slave, and the
like of him — antic-jesters and composers of ribald songs
to lampoon their companions, — such persons Philip car¬
esses and keeps about him. Small matters these may
be thought, but to the wise they are strong indications
of his character and wrongheadedness. Success per¬
haps throws a shade over them now ; prosperity is a
famous hider of such blemishes; but on any miscarriage
they will be fully exposed.”

Though in the above passage Demosthenes speaks
contemptuously of Philip, describing him as little better
than a savage and barbarian, he warns his hearers that
if they let Olynthus fall into his hands, he will soon
carry the war into Attica itself. The third and last
of his three speeches was delivered when the Olyn-
thians entreated Athens to send out a force of her own

PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS.

79

citizens, instead of mercenaries commanded by men of
the type of the officer whose misconduct, as we have
seen, had given them so much offence. Of all the
political orations of Demosthenes, this is perhaps the
most stirring and impressive. It is, in the opinion of
Mr Grote, one of the most splendid harangues ever
spoken. It seems that people at Athens still talked
about punishing Philip; and there were orators, no
doubt, who flattered them into the notion that they
could do so whenever they chose. “ Such talk,” says
Demosthenes, “ is founded on a false basis. The facts
of the case teach us a different lesson. They bid us
look well to our own security, that we be not ourselves
the sufferers, and that we preserve our allies. There
was, indeed, a time — and that, too, within my own
remembrance — when we might have held our own, and
punished Philip besides ; but now our first care must be
to preserve our own allies.” In this speech he ventures
on a bold proposal, which would be sure to provoke
bitter opposition from the peace party of Eubulus.
“ Iiepeal such of the existing laws as are injurious at
the present crisis — I mean those which regard the public
entertainments fund. I speak this out plainly. The
s&me men who proposed such a law ought also to take
upon them to propose its repeal.” In speaking thus,
Demosthenes knew that he was fighting against a most
powerful Athenian sentiment. It would cost them a
painful struggle to sacrifice the fund hi question to the
exigencies of a war which also demanded personal
service. They could hardly become like the men who
won Marathon and Salamis. There was the broadest

80

DEMOSTHENES.

contrast between them, as Demosthenes elaborately
points out in the following passage : —

“ Mark, Athenians, what a summary contrast may be
drawn between the doings in our olden time and in yours.
It is a tale brief and familiar to all. Our forefathers
for forty-five years took the leadership of Greece by
general consent, and brought as much as ten thousand
talents into the citadel ; and the king of Macedonia
was submissive to them, as a barbarian should be to
Greeks. Many glorious trophies they erected for
victories won by their own fighting on land and sea,
and they are the sole people in the world who have
bequeathed a renown which envy cannot hurt. Such
were their merits in the affairs of Greece; now see
what they were at home, both as citizens and men.
Their public works are edifices and ornaments of such
beauty and grandeur in temples and their consecrated
furniture, that posterity has not the power to surpass
them. In private they were so modest, and so attached
to the principles of our constitution, that whoever
knows the style of house which Aristides had or Mil-
tiades, and the illustrious of that day, perceives it to
be no grander than those of their neighbours. Then*
politics were not for money-making; each felt it his
duty to exalt the commonwealth. By a conduct
honourable among the Greeks, pious to the gods, brother¬
like among themselves, they justly attained a high
prosperity.

“So fared matters with them under the statesmen I
have named. How fare they with you under the

PHILIP AND OLYNTIIUS.

81

worthies of our time ? Is there any likeness or resem¬
blance'? I pass over other topics on which I could
expatiate. But observe. In the utter absence of com¬
petitors (Lacedaemonians depressed, Thebans employed,
none of the rest capable of disputing the supremacy
with us), when we might hold our own securely and
arbitrate the claims of others, we have been deprived
of our rightful territory, and spent above 1 500 talents
to no purpose. The allies whom we gained in war we
have lost in peace, and we have trained up against
ourselves an enemy thus formidable. For by whose
contrivance but our own has Philip grown strong?
This looks bad, you will say, but things at home are
better. What proof is there of this? The parapets
that are whitewashed, the roads that are repaired, the
fountains, and such trumpery things? Look at the
men of whose statesmanship these are the fruits. They
have risen from beggary to opulence, from obscurity to
honour. Some have made their private homes more
splendid than the public buildings, and as the State has
declined, their fortunes have been exalted.”

At last Athens roused herself to a real effort, and
sent to the relief of her ally a force of more than 2000
native Athenian citzens. Olynthus might yet have
been saved had the Olynthians been on their guard
against traitors within, and the history of Greece, per¬
haps of the world, might have been different. Philip,
meanwhile, was on the frontier of its territory, after
having captured most of the towns in the peninsula.
At the siege of one of them, an arrow from an Olynthian

A.C.S.S. vol. iv.

p

82

DEMOSTHENES.

archer deprived him of an eye. But early in the year
348 b.c. he attacked Olynthus itself, after a sudden
declaration of war. The Olynthians, he said, must
quit their city, or he must quit Macedonia. But he
did not overcome them by fair fighting. They were
betrayed by a party among their fellow-citizens. It
was by bribery, as Horace says,* that “the man of
Macedon” opened the gates of Olynthus as of other
cities. It was to be expected that he would show no
mercy. The fair city was razed to the ground, and
its population, with all the women and children, sold
into slavery.

This awful calamity sent a shudder through the
Greek world. The like of it had never been seen since
the great Persian invasion of Xerxes. As many as
thirty-two free Greek cities had utterly perished in a
period of less than two years at the hands of a bar¬
barian. Divided as the Greeks were among themselves,
they would have all heartily responded to the sentiment
of Demosthenes that “ a barbarian should be submissive
to Greeks.” It must have shocked and shamed them to
see with their own eyes troops of poor enslaved crea¬
tures, of both sexes and of Greek blood, passing through
the streets of their cities. And all this was the work of
a Macedonian, a man of inferior race, whom Greeks had
thought it almost a condescension to notice and patron¬
ise. I low could they expect that he would much longer
stay his hand from the destruction of the Greek cities
on the Hellespont and the Propontis, and from the
conquest of the rich corn-producing Chersonese 1 IIow

* Odes, iii. 16, 13.

PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS.

83

could they rest in peace till they saw their way to an
alliance of all the states of Greece against him % It is
natural for us to reason thus. But even the proximity
of manifest danger will not always banish mutual
jealousy and distrust. Nor is it in general easy to per¬
suade people that a power they have been accustomed
to disregard and despise, though its progress may
seem at times alarming, can ever become seriously
formidable to themselves. So it appears to have been
with the Greeks. After the fall of Olynthus and its
confederate cities, they still clung to their false con¬
fidence.

CHAPTER Yin.

DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS.

An incident about this time in tbe life of Demosthenes,
which gave occasion to one of his well-known speeches,
illustrates rather strikingly some of the less agreeable
phases of Athenian society. There was, of course, refine¬
ment and polish of a high degree, and, on the whole,
the tone and temper of the citizens seem to have been
humane and generous. But still, even at Athens, the
scandals and breaches of good taste and manners, which
one would fear are all but inseparable from democracy,
now and then made their appearance. Political rancour
and party violence reached an outrageous length, and
under their shelter the grossest acts of wrong were from
time to time committed with impunity. A rich man,
if he chose, might have plenty of influence in the State;
and along with this he would have at his command
many opportunities of injuring and oppressing those
whom he personally disliked. It appears that there
were several such men at Athens — men who no doubt
aspired to imitate the grand airs and fashionable ex¬
travagance of Alcibiades, who, clever and accomplished
as he was, at last made himself intolerable to tbe citi-

DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS.

85

zens of a free state. Many of these had nothing hut
riches to recommend them, and were pestilent fellows
whose idea of life was really nothing better than coarse,
vulgar rowdyism.

It was the fate of Demosthenes to come into collision
with a man of this class. Early in life, at the time
when he was engaged in his suit with his guardians,
he provoked the enmity of Meidias, a rich, well-born
man, and one of the constant supporters of the peace
party of Euhulus. The quarrel between them originated
in the following singular way. The brother of Meidias,
Thrasylochus, offered, according to a practice allowed
at Athens in the case of a trierarchy, or the provid¬
ing a war -ship for the State, to exchange properties
with Demosthenes, and, in the event of the offer being
accepted, he gave the guardians privately to understand
that the lawsuit should be dropped. In this manner
he sought to defeat the legal proceedings which Demos¬
thenes was takmg, and, in fact, to get his just claims
set aside. The two brothers, it appears, on one occasion
actually rushed into his house, behaved with excessive
violence, and used coarse and ribald language in the
presence of his sister, then a mere girl. For this outrage
Demosthenes sued Meidias, and recovered damages; but
he had not been able to obtain payment. From that
time the man became his bitter enemy, and worried and
persecuted him hi every possible way. His animosity
was all the more virulent as he was also politically
opposed to Demosthenes. In the year 351 b.c. both
served in a military expedition to Euboea — Meidias in
the cavalry, Demosthenes as a foot soldier. Neither

86

DEMOSTHENES.

of them was for any length of time with the army.
Demosthenes went hack to Athens, on the pretext that
he had to imdertake the important public duty of chor-
agus or choir-director for his tribe. It seems that he
undertook this quite voluntarily, hut his enemy hinted
that he had merely done so to escape the hardships of
campaigning. And he followed up the taunt with
gross insult and outrage. The choir -director, as we
have seen, usually appeared, when the ceremony was
celebrated, in a special dress, and wore a crown ; and
Demosthenes had ordered for the occasion a particularly
magnificent robe and a crown of gold. Meidias con¬
trived to break into the embroiderer’s shop where
the dress had been prepared, and spoilt the finery in
which Demosthenes was to show himself. He went
further; he struck him on the face before the assembled
audience, and, according to Demosthenes’ own account,
was the means of losing him the prize, which his chorus
would have won. The spectators were indignant; and
Meidias was convicted of the crime of sacrilege, as it
would seem, on the very same day by an assembly held
in the theatre. But the affair could not rest here. It
was for a court of justice to decide how he was to be
punished. Clearly, it was right that Demosthenes
should prosecute him, and this he did. He was thirty-
two years of age at the time. Meidias tried to defeat
the prosecution by indicting Demosthenes on the charge
of desertion of military service, on the ground that he
had left the army in Eubcea and returned to Athens.
The indictment came to nothing ; but Demosthenes, it
appears, was not decisively successful in his proceed-

DEMOSTHENES AND ME 1 DIAS.

87

ings against Meidias. He was reproached by his rival,
iEschines, with having compromised the affair. At
all events, it is not certain whether the case was ever
brought to trial. But the tone of the extant speech
certainly implies this ; and it is really difficult to sup¬
pose, looking at some passages in which he takes credit
to himself for having rejected a compromise and having
brought the defendant to trial, that it was merely writ¬
ten and never delivered. This is, we know, a very
general opinion, and there are reasons for it; hut in the
face of the speech as it has come down to us, it seems
a question whether it can be sustained.

The tone of the speecli is savage and violent. It is
full of furious invective. But at least it is interesting
as giving us a glimpse into some of the abuses arising
out of wealth and insolence even in a democratical
community like Athens. We have an amusing picture
of Meidias himself; and though perhaps it is a cari¬
cature, it was no doubt typical of a really existing
class. He had, it is said, got himself elected a cavalry
officer on the strength of being a rich man, and yet lie
could not so much as ride through the market-place.
His single act of munificence was giving the State a
war-ship, when he knew he was not likely to incur any
personal danger. He delighted in making a vulgar
parade of his wealth. He had built a house at Eleusis,
one of the suburbs of Athens, so big that it darkened
all the houses in the place. He used to take his wife
to the Mysteries, or to any place she had a fancy for
visiting, in a carriage and pair. He would push
tlnough the market-place and the leading thorough-

88

DEMOS THENES.

fares, talking of his dinners and his drinking-horns so
loud that all the passers-by could hear. “ Do not,” says
Demosthenes in his speech, “honour and admire things
of this kind — do not judge of liberality by these tests,
whether a man builds splendid houses or has many
female servants, or handsome furniture; but look who
is spirited and liberal in those things which the bulk
of you share the enjoyment of. Meidias, you will
find, has nothing of that kind about him.”

“Will you,” he asks, “let Meidias escape because
he is rich'? This is pretty much the cause of his
insolence. Therefore you should rather take away the
means which enable him to be insolent than pardon
him in consideration of them. To allow an audacious
blackguard like him to have wealth at his command
is to put arms in his hands against yourselves.”

“I take it you all know his disposition, his offensive
and overbearing behaviour; and some of you, I daresay,
have been wondering about things which they know
themselves, but have not heard from me now. Many
of the injured parties do not even like to tell all that
they have suffered, dreading this man’s litigiousness,
and the fortune which makes such a despicable fellow
strong and terrible. Tor when a rogue and a bully is
supported by wealth and power, it is a wall of defence
against any attack. Let Meidias be stripped of his
possessions, and most likely he will not play the bully.
If he should, he will be less regarded than the humblest
man among you; he will rail and bawl to no purpose
then, and be punished for any misbehaviour like the

DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS.

89

rest of us. Now, it seems, Polyeuctus and Timocrates
and the ragamuffin Euctemon are his body-guard ;
these are a sort of mercenaries that he keeps about
him, and others also besides them, a confederate band
of witnesses, who never trouble you openly, but by
simply nodding their heads affirm and lie with perfect
ease. By the powers, I do not believe they get any
good from him; but they are wonderful people for
making up to the rich, and attending on them, and
giving evidence. All this, I take it, is a danger to any
of you that live quietly by yourselves as well as you
can; and therefore it is that you assemble together, in
order that, though taken separately you are over¬
matched by any one either in friends or riches, or in
anything else, you may collectively he more than a
match for him and put a stop to his insolence.”

Meidias, according to Demosthenes, was at heart a
coward, and would be sure to make an abject appeal
to the people’s pity. The following passage is towards
the end of the speech : —

“ I know he will have his children in court and
whine; he will talk very humbly, shedding tears and
making himself as piteous as he can. Yet the more he
humbles himself, the more ought you to detest him.
"Why 1 Because if the outrageousness and violence of
his conduct arose out of his inability to be humble, it
would have been fair to make some allowance for his
temper, and the accident which made him what he is.
But if he knows how to behave himself properly when

90

DEMOSTHENES.

lie likes, and lias adopted a different line of conduct by
choice, surely it is quite evident that if he eludes
justice now, he will again become the same Meidias
that you know him for. You must not listen to him,
then; you must not let the present occasion, when he
is playing the hypocrite, have more weight and influence
with you than the whole past of which you have had
experience.

“ Perhaps he will say of me, This man is an orator.
Well; if one who advises what he thinks for your
good, without being troublesome or intrusive, is an
orator, I would not deny or refuse the name. But if
an orator be what (to my knowledge and to your know¬
ledge) certain of our speakers are — impudent fellows,
enriched at your expense — I can hardly be that; for
I have received nothing from you, but spent all my
substance upon you, except a mere trifle. Probably,
also, Meidias will say that all my speech is prepared.
I admit that I have got it up as well as I possibly
could. I were a complete simpleton indeed, if, having
suffered and still suffering such injuries, I took no pains
about the mode of stating them to you. I maintain
that Meidias lias composed my speech; he who has
supplied the facts which the speech is about, may most
fairly be deemed its author, not he who has merely pre¬
pared it or studied how to lay an honest case before
you.”

The speech is not, we think, one of Demosthenes’
best; but it is often ingenious, and it certainly shows
singular power of invective. It suggests that what we

DEMOSTHENES AND M El DIAS.

91

should call very loose practice on the part of an advo¬
cate was tolerated in an Athenian court. Demosthenes
by no means confines himself to the outrage committed
on him by Meidias, but speaks of the injuries he had
inflicted on others, and indeed attacks generally the
man’s whole life and character. The attack may have
been deserved ; still, the manner of it, and the circum¬
stances under which it was made, point to the exist¬
ence of dangers at Athens to which any citizen might
suddenly find himself exposed.

■**

s "

I

« _ '

CHAPTER IX.

PHILIP MASTER OF THERMOPYLAE AND OF PHOCIS -

PEACE BETWEEN HIM AND ATHENS - COUNSEL OF

DEMOSTHENES.

We now enter on a period of melancholy disgrace and
humiliation for the Greek race. Within two years the
barbarian destroyer of Olynthus becomes master of the
key to Greece, the famous pass of Thermopylae, and of
the whole of Phocis, the country in which stood the
mountains of Parnassus, and the old and venerable
temple of Delphi. Events more terrific and momentous,
says Demosthenes in one of his speeches, had never
occurred either in his own time or in that of any of his
predecessors. Athens was forced into a miserably
ignominious peace, and many of her citizens had
stooped to the infamy of being the mere tools and
paid agents of the “ man of Maced on.” Even Isocrates,
true Greek as he was in all his sympathies, as well as
thoroughly upright and high-minded, was now con¬
vinced that the best wisdom for Greece was to put
itself under the leadership of this wonderfully success¬
ful prince, and allow him to conduct its united armies
to the conquest of Persia.

PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND A TIIE NS. 93

The history of these five years is somewhat intricate.
It will he enough for the present purpose to summarise
the general course of events. The period was mainly
occupied in negotiations on the part of Athens with
Philip. These were ill-managed, and had a most dis¬
astrous conclusion. One motive which no doubt
prompted them was, the very natural desire of recover¬
ing those Athenian citizens who had been captured
with the Olynthians. Toward Athens Philip had usu¬
ally shown himself gracious and conciliatory. So, when
the relatives of two of the captives, both men of high
position, presented themselves as suppliants before the
Assembly, it was decided to communicate with Philip.
A favourable answer was received ; and we have reason
to believe that now there was an inclination in favour
of peace. At first it was otherwise. Even Eubulus and
his party, who held war the worst of all evils, were
constrained to speak of Philip as an enemy. They
went further; they attempted, by embassies into the
Peloponnese, to raise some sort of coalition against him.
Among other places they visited Megalopolis, where,
however, then overtures met with but a cold reception.
Athens, as we have had occasion to notice, had made a
blunder some years before in not following the counsel
of Demosthenes when he advised that the Megalopoli-
tans should be supported against Sparta. Now she
found that they were not to be roused into action by
what no doubt seemed to them a comparatively remote
danger. There would, too, have been some political in¬
convenience in an alliance with them. Such an alli¬
ance would have meant a rupture with Sparta, and a

94

DEMOSTHENES.

friendly attitude towards Thebes, a state against which
Athenian feeling was peculiarly hitter. As soon as
it seemed clear that there was no prospect of organising
a combination throughout Greece against Philip, the
wish for peace grew in strength, and the people were
not averse to opening negotiations with their powerful
enemy.

It is at this juncture that the name of Demosthenes’
famous rival iEschines first comes before us. He rose
to be one of the foremost Athenian orators and states¬
men from a very lowly origin. His father kept what
we should call a preparatory school, and he himself
began life as an inferior actor and a government clerk.
He was a man of immense industry and ability, and
was naturally endowed with all the qualities which go
to make an orator. He was one of the envoys sent
on the mission to the Peloponnese, which had for
its purpose the stirring up of the Greeks against
Macedonian aggression. It appears that he addressed
a very powerful appeal to the Arcadian Assembly at
Megalopolis, fiercely denouncing all traitors to the
liberties of Greece, and stigmatising Philip as a “ blood¬
stained barbarian.” Such was the beginning of the
political life of a man who subsequently allowed him¬
self to become the means of furthering that “ bar¬
barian’s ” most dangerous designs upon Greece and her
liberties.

In the negotiations of this period between Athens
and Philip, Aeschines took a leading part as an envoy.
So, too, did Demosthenes himself ; and the hostile

PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 95

relations between them, which subsequently gave oc¬
casion to their memorable oratorical contest, date from
this time. We have for the most part to depend on
the conflicting statements of the two orators for our
knowledge of the circumstances by which Athens, two
years after the ruin of Olynthus, was drawn into a
shameful peace. It almost seems as if she wilfully
allowed herself to make one stupid blunder after
another. But this is not a true view of the case.
Athens, no doubt, might have done much better under
the guidance of really firm and very skilful statesman¬
ship; but it must be remembered that the situation was
extremely complicated, and it was barely possible to
foresee even approximately the course and tendency
of events. After the destruction of Olynthus it must
have seemed clear that Philip was the enemy of
Greece ; and that, consequently, it was the duty and
policy of Athens to regard him in this light, and
decline all negotiations with him. But, as we have
seen, Athens was not able to organise a confederacy
of the Greek states against him ; and if she had de¬
cided to fight him, she must have felt that she would
have to fight single-handed. When to this considera¬
tion was added the desire to recover some of her own
citizens, now prisoners in Philip’s hands — when, too,
she found that he was still courteous and conciliatory —
we cannot be surprised that she shrank from a struggle
which would have tasked her resources to the utter¬
most. It might, perhaps, have been better and safer
for her to have made any sacrifice, and have at once

96

DEMOSTHENES.

decided on war against the destroyer of thirty Greek
cities ; hut it was not easy for her to see her way to
such a step alone and unsupported.

The relations, too, of the states of Greece to each
other and to Athens presented many difficulties. Never
had there been a time when it was harder to unite
them. Sparta, the leading state of the Peloponnese,
could under no circumstances be easily stimulated into
exertions in the Greek cause. Her statesmen were apt
to take a narrow and selfish view of the politics of
Greece. The other states of the Peloponnese were more
afraid of being oppressed by Spartan ascendancy, of
which they had had actual experience, than of danger
from Macedon, of which they knew next to nothing.
Here, therefore, there was but a poor prospect of coali¬
tion. Thebes and Phocis, the two remaining states,
were themselves engaged in the Sacred War. Phocis
had appropriated to itself the treasures of the temple
of Delphi, and had thus put itself in a false position
before the Greek world, as being guilty of sacrilege.
And as for Thebes, it had no really great and far¬
sighted statesmen ; nor had it, to the extent which
Athens still had, a sense of its duty to Greece. Its
policy was often particularly selfish ; and even under
the most favourable circumstances, it would have been
most difficult to have persuaded Thebans to co-operate
heartily with Athenians. So anxious was it to crush
its Phocian neighbours, with whom it had long been
involved in a troublesome war, that when Philip
undertook to crush them it welcomed the offer. The
bait he held out was tempting ; but the Thebans ought

PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 97

to have had enough Greek sentiment not to listen to
his proposals, the acceptance of which would probably
lead to the conquest and destruction of a Greek people
by a barbarian. Philip, of course, could justify himself
by saying that he was attacking those who were, in fact,
the enemies of Greece, inasmuch as by the pillage of the
sacred treasures of Delphi they had outraged the best
and truest Greek feeling. But to conquer Phocis he
must be master of Thermopylae ; and if he once gained
this position, it could hardly be doubted that he would be
able to do as he pleased, and that Thebes, if he chose to
pick a quarrel with her, would be in the utmost jeopardy.

All this was recognised by Demosthenes, and, as it
seems, by the Athenians generally. They were quite
alive to the importance of garrisoning Thermopylae,
and they sent a force there. But the Phocian leader,
Phalaecus, from some sort of jealousy towards Athens,
and a fear that political intrigues would be set on foot
against him to deprive him of his influence with his
countrymen, refused to admit the Athenian troops into
possession of the important pass. It was now difficult
for the Athenians to know how to act. For anything
they knew to the contrary, Phalaecus might have some
understanding with Philip, and be willing to surrender
the pass to him. This position was perplexing and
disheartening, while to Philip it was a grand oppor¬
tunity. If he could contrive to conclude peace with
Athens, and to get the Pliocians excluded from it, he
would be able, with some sort of excuse, to occupy
Thermopylae and invade Phocis. And in doing this,
he would have Thebes on his side.

a.c.s.s. vol. iv.

0

98

DEMOSTHENES.

After much negotiation, this was the result which he
managed to accomplish. Peace was concluded between
Philip and Athens, their respective allies being included.
While the negotiations were pending, and the Athe¬
nian envoys were waiting at Pella for an interview
with the King, he was in Thrace, and gained some
important successes over the chief of the country,
Cersobleptes, at this time an ally of Athens. The
effect of this was to weaken and endanger the hold
which Athens had on the Thracian Chersonese, — a
specially valuable possession. Indeed, peace was
made ultimately on terms which the Athenians had
not originally contemplated. This, Demosthenes main¬
tained, was due to the treacherous connivance of
Aeschines and of some of the other envoys, who loit¬
ered at Pella when they ought to have at once made
their way to Philip in Thrace, and settled matters with
him on the basis which had been mutually agreed on.
But the most terrible mistake was the exclusion of the
Phocians from the treaty. The Athenians were some¬
how cajoled into believing that Philip meant them
well; and even Demosthenes did not at the time
protest against the abandonment of Phocis. The
error was irretrievable, for it amounted to nothing
less than letting Philip become master of Thermopylae.
The Phocians could not hold the pass without support.
When they found themselves isolated, their leader,
Plialaecus, after being summoned by Philip to give up
possession of it, consented to do so under a convention,
and withdrew his forces. The surrender of Phocis to
Philip followed as a matter of course. He dealt with

PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 99

the country and its towns as he had dealt two years
before with Chalcidice and its towns. Phocis was
utterly ruined. Another Greek state had now fallen
before the Macedonian destroyer, and the prospects of
Greece generally might well seem gloomy.

The calamity, however, was not so shocking to the
Greek world as one might have supposed it would have
been. The Phocians, as has been explained, had been
offenders against the common law and traditions of
Greece, and their destruction might he regarded as a
divine judgment. Even the man who executed it,
though a barbarian according to Greek notions, might
have some claim to be considered as the representative
of a sacred cause. In one sense he had been doing the
very thing which the voice of Greece had been calling
for. The Thebans were especially grateful to him, and
forgot in their blindness the mischief which by this
last stroke he had inflicted on Greece. Now that the
Phocians had ceased to exist as a Greek people, their
place in the Amphictyonic Council was, when the
great Pythian festival came round after a four years’
interval, conferred on Philip. He was even nominated
president of the august ceremony. In all this Thebes
heartily concurred, as also did several smaller states.
Athens and Sparta, indeed, held aloof. But when
Philip’s envoys announced to the Athenians the new
position he had acquired with the consent of so many
Greek states, they did not like to refuse concurrence in
what a large part of Greece seemed to approve.

Strong as Philip was before, he was now immensely
strengthened, and fresh chances were open to him for

100

DEMOSTHENES.

interfering actively in Greek politics. Membership of
the Amphictyonic Council was, in fact, equivalent to
naturalisation. Philip was now, in theory at least, a
Greek, and no longer a barbarian. The Athenian
Isocrates could, with a show of reason, address a letter
to him, inviting him to reconcile under his leadership
the great states of Greece, and invade Asia with a view
to the overthrow of the Persian empire and the libera¬
tion of the Asiatic Greeks. But the Athenians gene¬
rally felt deep anger and vexation at the issue of events,
and could hardly make up their minds to sit still
under the disgrace of the surrender of Thermopylae
and the intrusion of a foreign prince into the heart of
Greece.

Demosthenes, as has been said, had no sympathy
with the ideas of Isocrates. He still clung to the belief
in a general independent Greek world, of which his
own state ought to be the most perfect representative.
Yet on this occasion he spoke in favour of the in¬
glorious peace just concluded. Miserable as it was, he
argued that to break it would be to give Philip a pre¬
text for uniting other Greek states in war against them.
The tone of his speech is confident and decided. The
peace was bad and dishonourable, no doubt, but to
repudiate it would be simply madness. It would be
putting themselves gratuitously in the wrong. “ The
shadow at Delphi,” as he calls the subject of the Sacred
war which had been waged between Thebes and Pho-
cis, was not worth fighting for, more especially when
they would have to fight a Greek confederacy. It
could not have been altogether pleasant to Demosthenes

COUNSEL OF DEMOSTHENES.

101

to advise acquiescence in a peace which he and his
countrymen generally felt to he humiliating. But as
they had drifted into it, all they could now do was to
make the best of it, and guard themselves from new
aggressions.

CHAPTER X.

DEMOSTHENES CONTINUES HIS SPEECHES AGAINST

PHILIP.

Erom the peace of 346 b.c. we may date a revolution
in the Greek world. Philip had acquired a new posi¬
tion, and it was acknowledged that he had henceforth
a right to take a part in Greek politics. Even Demos¬
thenes had to recognise the fact of a change of sen¬
timent towards him. Isocrates could argue more
plausibly than ever that everything pointed to him as
the true head and champion of Greece, and, conse¬
quently, as the predestined conqueror of Asia, the old
antagonist of Greece.

The peace just concluded was soon seen to he a
thoroughly hollow one. Philip, it was evident, had no
intention of being really hound by it, any longer than
it answered his purpose. This the Athenians could
hardly fail to understand, however much they might
try to deceive themselves ; and their feeling towards
him was made up of fear and anger. We might have
thought that he could have at once organised a Greek
confederacy against Persia with almost a certainty of
success, but he seems to have been too cautious and

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP.

103

astute to expose himself to any serious risks. His policy
was to secure a yet firmer footing in the Greek world.
Athens, he knew, was his only formidable enemy.
There was still a possibility that she might rouse Greece
against him, and overpower him by a coalition of which
she would be the head. He must therefore endeavour
to isolate her by political intrigues, and, by driving her
out of the Chersonese, strike a fatal blow at the com¬
merce on which her prosperity largely depended.

With these views he began to meddle with the politics
of the Peloponnese. There circumstances favoured his
designs. He had the opportunity of playing the part
of champion and deliverer to the oppressed. Sparta was
the great object of dread to the people of Argos, of
Megalopolis, and of Messene. They could not imagine
that they had any other enemy to fear. Thebes
had hitherto been their protector, but Thebes was no
longer in a condition to command their confidence.
It was to Philip that they now not unnaturally looked.
It was hardly to be expected that they would abstain
from invoking his aid against a pressing and imme¬
diate danger, because it may have been suggested
to them that they were thereby imperilling the best
interests of Greece. What they wanted was help
against Sparta, and this Philip promised them. He
would, he said, soon be with them in person; and
meanwhile he sent them some troops, and bade Sparta
refrain from any attempt on Messene.

This was a clever movement on Philip’s part, and
Athens could not very well protest against it or seek to
thwart it. All that could be said was that, judging

104

DEMOSTHENES.

from the past, it was an interference which ultimately
meant mischief. Demosthenes succeeded in bringing
the Athenians to this point of view. He induced them
to send an embassy, himself being at the head of it,
into the Peloponnese, the express object of which was
to defeat Philip’s diplomacy. He visited several of
the cities, and addressed warnings to them based on
the bad faith of Philip generally, and on his treatment
of Olynthus particularly. He told them plainly that
in theh fear and hatred of Sparta they were allowing
themselves to become his accomplices in enslaving
and ruining Greece. It seems that one of the chief
arguments on which he insisted was the utter impossi¬
bility of a sincere and hearty union between free states
and a despot. This woidd be sure to impress the
democratic party — always a powerful element in a
Greek state. He was heard — so he tells us himself in
one of his subsequent speeches — with approbation and
applause, but he failed to convince. There were, as he
says in another speech, those in every state who were
willing to be controlled by a foreign power, if only they
could get the upper hand of their fellow-citizens. The
old love of freedom and of legal government, which
had been the great glory of Greece, seemed to be on
the wane. Still Demosthenes accomplished something.
Philip thought it necessary to send envoys to Athens
with some sort of apology for himself and his general
policy ; and an embassy also came, perhaps at his sug¬
gestion, from some of the states of the Peloponnese.
Athens was in a perplexing position. Philip could
plausibly say that the Athenians were unreasonably

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP

105

suspicious towards him, and even, in fact, disregarding
the spirit of the peace recently concluded. The envoys
from Argos and Messene might fairly complain of the
seeming connection between Athens and Sparta, and
argue that it was a menace to the liberties of the
Peloponnese. It was a great and critical occasion, and
called for able statesmanship. It was an opportunity
to raise yet higher the character of Demosthenes as a
public adviser, and he availed himself of it. In the
speech which he delivered in b.c. 344, known as the
second Philippic, he spoke out in the plainest lan¬
guage both against Philip’s insinuations and against
the ill-timed complaints of the Peloponnesian envoys.
He vindicated at the same time his own policy, and
denounced the Philippising faction, in which his rival
AEschines was now a conspicuous figure.

Philip, he declares, was the great aggressor of the
age ; he was a plotter against the whole of Greece. He
repeats what he had said as ambassador to the people
of Messene by way of warning from the past : —

“Ye men of Messene, how do you think the Olyn-
thians would have looked to hear anything against Philip
at those times when he surrendered to them Anthemus,
which all former kings of Macedonia claimed, when he
cast out the Athenian colonists and gave them Potidsea,
thereby incurring your enmity, and giving them the
land to enjoy ? Think you that they expected such
treatment as they got, or would they have believed it
if they had been told? Nevertheless, after enjoying
for a brief space the possessions of others, they are for

106

D E M 0 ST IIE NE S. .

a long period deprived by Philip of their own, shame¬
fully expelled- — not only vanquished, but betrayed by
one another and sold. In truth, these too close con¬
nections with despots are not safe for free states.
There are manifold contrivances for the guarding and
defending of cities — as ramparts, walls, trenches, and
the like ; these are all made with hands and demand
an outlay. But there is one common safeguard in the
nature of wise men which is a good security for all,
but especially for democracies against despots. What
do I mean 1 Mistrust. Keep this ; hold to this ; pre¬
serve this only, and you can never be injured. What
do ye desire1? Freedom. Then do you not see that
with this Philip’s very titles are at variance 1 Every
king and despot is a foe to freedom, an antagonist to
laws. Will ye not beware, lest in seeking to be de¬
livered from war you find a master ? ”

Yet in a speech delivered three years afterwards,
which we shall shortly notice, Demosthenes suggests
that they might entertain the thought of seeking aid
even from Persia. The suggestion, perhaps, was only
made in desperation, and must not be taken as repre¬
senting anything like a change of political sentiments.
To the last Demosthenes was a believer in free and
popular governments as opposed to tyrannies and des¬
potisms. Still, as he has to admit, such governments
are liable to be out-manoeuvred by cunning diplomacy.
So it had been with themselves, as he reminds them
in the present speech. They had been persuaded to
believe that Philip, if he became master of Thermo-

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP.

107

pylse, would humble their old enemy Thebes, and give
them Oropus and Euboea in exchange for Amphipolis.

“All these declarations on the hustings,” he says,
with the Philippising party in. his eye, “ 1 am sure you
remember, though you are not famous for remembering
injuries. While the mischief is only coming and pre¬
paring, whilst we hear one another speak, I wish
every man, though he know it well, to he reminded
who it was persuaded you to abandon Pliocis and
Thermopylae, by the possession of which Philip com¬
mands the road to Attica and Peloponnese, and has
brought it to this, that you have now to deliberate, not
about claims and interests abroad, but about the de¬
fence of your home and a war in Attica, which will be
a grievous shock to every citizen when it conies ; and
indeed it commenced from that day of your infatuation.
Had you not been then deceived, there would be noth¬
ing now to distress the State.”

1

One point insisted on in this speech is, that the
struggle in the Greek states was no longer, as it had
hitherto been, one between aristocracy and democracy,
but between Philip’s party and its opponents.

The following year witnessed a memorable contest
between Demosthenes and AEschines. It arose out of
the embassies to Philip and the various negotiations
with him, which ended, as we have seen, so unfortu¬
nately for Athens and Greece. AEschines, it will be
remembered, was an adherent of the peace party of
Eubulus; and Demosthenes now made a great effort

108

D E MOS Til ENE S.

to discredit him, as being, in fact, corruptly responsible
for Philip’s occupation of Thermopylae, the destruction
of Phocis, and the new and powerful position which
he had been able to assume in Greece. The pleadings
of both the orators in this great cause have come down
to us, and they are specially valuable as supplying us
with materials for the history of an intricate period.
Demosthenes presses his attack with great vehemence,
and resorts, as he well knew how, to the most savage
invective. To our minds it is, as a work of art, one
of the least pleasing and satisfactory of his speeches.
There is a coarseness and vulgarity about the vitupera¬
tion — and that, too, under circumstances in which very
strong condemnation of his rival must have been felt
to have been a mistake. He taunts iEschines with
having been all along the conscious tool of Philip’s
cunning policy, when it was perfectly well known that
he had himself, from want of clear foresight perhaps,
not steadily opposed that policy at more than one criti¬
cal point. He was not successful ; but the victory won
by his rival was a very poor one. iEschines was ac¬
quitted only by thirty votes. This implies that, on
the whole, public opinion was against him, though it
may have been felt that distinct and positive evidence
was wanting. We may infer that Demosthenes’ polit¬
ical influence was very great. He failed probably be¬
cause, as Dr Thirlwall remarks, he had an extremely
intricate case, and could not attack iEschines effec¬
tively without having from time to time to defend
himself and explain certain ambiguities in his own
share in the negotiations.

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP .

109

Athens, as has been said, was now particularly vul¬
nerable in the Thracian Chersonese and the north of
the Aegean. To these points the restless Philip directed
his attention in 342-341 b.c. It could not he doubted
that he was meditating the annexation of this important
district, and the conquest of the Greek cities on the
northern shores of the Propontis — Perintlius, Selymbria,
and above all Byzantium. If he could achieve this,
Athens would he completely paralysed. Her maritime
supremacy would he at an end, and her supplies of
corn would he cut off. She would cease to exist as
a commercial power. Philip’s designs on Athens in
Thrace were not unlike those of Napoleon I. on Eng¬
land in his attacks on Egypt and Spain. It was argued
in Parliament at the time, that in carrying on war
with France in these countries, we were practically
standing on our own defence. Demosthenes took the
same line of argument against Philip. A force had
been sent out from Athens to the Chersonese as an
army of observation on Philip’s movements. The
general, Diopeithes, was an able, energetic man ; and it
is interesting to us to know that he was the father of the
poet Menander. There were some disputes between
the Athenian colonists and the Cardians to the north
of the Chersonese. Philip seemed disposed to favour
the latter, upon which Diopeithes at once retaliated by
invading Macedonian territory. He gained some suc¬
cesses, and for a while even deprived Philip of some
of his recent conquests. Considering that the peace of
346 b.c. was still in force, Athens may he said to have
been put in the wrong by her over-zealous general, and

110

DEMOSTHENES.

Philip sent the people a despatch in which he formally
complained of these encroachments. All his political
adherents at Athens clamoured for the instant recall of
Diopeithes. Like other Athenian generals, Diopeithes,
who commanded some mercenaries, was almost com¬
pelled to provide for them by expeditions which could
not be strictly justified. Still, it might be truly argued
in his favour that he was really repelling a dangerous
aggressor. And on this ground Demosthenes pleaded his
cause, and argued that he should be continued in his
command. The speech he delivered on this occasion
— “On behalf of the Chersonese,” as it has been
entitled — contains the clear and powerful reasonings of
a sagacious statesman.

The people, he maintains, ought to deal with their
enemies before they call their own servants to account.
It was very well for Philip to complain of an infringe¬
ment of the peace in this particular instance , but was
it not notorious that he had himself deprived Athens
of her own possessions % It was a mere blind to say,
as some said, that they must make up their minds to
have either war or peace. “If it appears that from
the very first Philip has robbed us of our territories,
and has been all along incessantly gathering the spoil
of other nations, Greek and barbarian, for the materials
of an attack upon you, what do they mean by saying
we must have war or peace ? ”

“Consider what is actually going on. Philip is
staying with a large army in Thrace, and sending for
reinforcements, as eye-witnesses report, from Macedonia

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP.

Ill

and Thessaly. Now, should he wait for the trade-
winds, and then march to the siege of Byzantium, think
ye that the Byzantines would persist in their present
folly, and would not invite and implore your aid ? I
do not believe it. No; they will receive any people,
even those they distrust more than us, sooner than
surrender their city to Philip — unless, indeed, he is
beforehand with them and captures it. If, then, we are
unable to sail northward, and there be no help at
hand, nothing can prevent their destruction. Well ;
let us say the Byzantines are infatuated and besotted.
Very likely; yet they must be rescued, because it is
good for Athens. Nor is it clear that he will not
attack the Chersonese; nay, if we may judge from the
letter he sent us, he says he will chastise the people in
the Chersonese. If the present army be kept on foot,
it will be able to defend that country, and attack some
of Philip’s dominions. But if it become disbanded,
what shall we do if he march against the Chersonese ?
With such facts and arguments before you, so far from
disbanding this army which Diopeithes is endeavouring
to organise for Athens, you ought yourselves to provide
an additional one, to support him with funds, and with
other friendly co-operation.”

In the following passage he inveighs against his
political opponents, and the extreme licence of speech
allowed to them in practically advocating the interests of
Philip : —

“ This, you must be convinced, is a struggle for
existence. You cannot overcome your enemies abroad

112

DEMOSTHENES.

till you have punished your enemies, his ministers, at
home. They will be the stumbling-blocks which pre¬
vent you reaching the others. Why, do you suppose,
Philip now insults you 1 To other people he at least
renders services though he deceives them, while he is
already threatening you. Look, for instance, at the
Thessalians. It was by many benefits conferred on
them that he seduced them into their present bondage.
And then the Olynthians, again, — how he cheated them,
first giving them Potidaea and several other places,
is really beyond description. Now he is enticing the
Thebans by giving up to them Bceotia, and delivering
them from a toilsome and vexatious war. Each of
these peoples did get a certain advantage ; but some of
them have suffered what all the world knows ; others
will suffer whatever may hereafter befall them. As
for you, I recount not all that has been taken from
you, but how shamefully have you been treated and
despoiled ! Why is it that Philip deals so differently
with you and with others % Because yours is the only
state in Greece in which the privilege is allowed of
speaking for the enemy, and a citizen taking a bribe
may safely address the Assembly, though you have
been robbed of your dominions. It was not safe at
Olynthus to be Philip’s advocate unless the Olynthian
commonalty had shared the advantage by possession
of Potidsea. It was not safe in Thessaly to be Philip’s
advocate unless the people of Thessaly had secured the
advantage by Philip’s expelling their tyrants and re¬
storing the synod at Pyke. It was not safe in Thebes,
until he gave up Boeotia to them and destroyed the

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP.

113

Pliocians. Yet at Athens, though Philip has deprived
you of Amphipolis and the territory round Cardia —
nay, is making Euboea a fortress as a check upon us,
and is advancing to attack Byzantium — it is safe to
speak in Philip’s behalf.”

He thus concludes the speech : —

“ I will sum up my advice and sit down. You must
contribute money, and maintain the existing troops,
rectifying any abuse you may discover, hut not, on any
accusation which somebody may bring, disbanding the
force. Send out ambassadors everywhere to instruct, to
warn, to accomplish what they can for Athens. Further,
I say, punish your corrupt statesmen, execrate them at
all times and places, and thereby prove that men of
virtue and honourable conduct have consulted wisely
both for others and for themselves.”

It is satisfactory to learn that this speech was success¬
ful, and that Diopeithes, who certainly deserved well of
his country, was continued in his command, and the
Chersonese saved for Athens.

Demosthenes was now the leading Athenian states¬
man. He had shaken the influence of the peace party,
and he seems to have still further strengthened his
political position by a speech delivered about three
months after that which we have just been considering.
The speech in question has always been regarded as one
of singular power. As far as we know, nothing new
had occurred ; but Philip was still in Thrace, threaten¬
ing the Chersonese and the northern shores of the

A.C.S.S. vol. iv.

H

114

DEMOSTHENES.

Propontis, and clearly had designs on Perinthus and
Byzantium. Demosthenes repeats in substance the
arguments he had recently urged. Greece, he says, is
in the utmost peril from its miserable divisions and
apathy, and from the unique position which it has
allowed Philip to attain. As for Athens, “ her affairs
have been brought so low by carelessness and negli¬
gence, I fear it is a hard truth to say that if all the ora¬
tors had sought to suggest, and you to pass, resolutions
for the utter ruining of the commonwealth, we could
not, methinks, be worse off than we are.” It had been
said at Athens in the speeches of some of the orators,
“Wait till Philip declares war, and then it will be
time to discuss how we shall resist him.” Demosthenes’
reply is,—

“ If we wait till Philip avows that he is at war with
us, we are the simplest of mortals ; for he would not
declare war, though he marched even against Athens
and Piraeus — at least, if we may judge from his conduct
to others. When he sends his mercenaries into the
Chersonese, which the king of Persia and all the Greeks
acknowledge to be yours, what can be the meaning of
such proceedings ? He says he is not at war. But I
cannot admit such conduct to be an observance of the
peace. Par otherwise. I say that by his present ad¬
vance into Thrace, by his intrigues in the Peloponnese,
by the whole course of his operations with his army, he
has been breaking the peace and making war upon you,
— unless, indeed, you will say that those who establish
military engines are not at war until they apply them

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP.

115

to the walls. But that you will not say; for whoever
prepares and contrives the means for my conquest, is
at war with me before he hurls the dart or draws the
bow. Should anything happen, what is the risk you
run? The alienation of the Hellespont, the subjection
of Megara and Euboea to your enemy, the siding of
the Peloponnese with him. Then, can I allow that
one who sets such an engine at work against Athens
is at peace with her ? Quite the contrary. Erom the
day that he destroyed Phocis I date his commence¬
ment of hostilities. So widely do I differ from your
other advisers that I deem any discussion about the
Chersonese or Byzantium out of place. Succour them
— I advise that; watch that no harm befalls them; send
all necessary supplies to your troops in that quarter :
but let your deliberations be for the safety of all
Greece, as being in the most extreme jeopardy.”

The Greeks, he declares, must have utterly forgotten
themselves in allowing a foreigner and a barbarian a
licence in dealing with their affairs which they had
never thought of according to such states as Athens
or Sparta. This was monstrous, and implied a fatal
degeneracy.

“ I observe,” says the orator, “ that all people be¬
ginning from yourselves have conceded to Philip a
right which in former days was the subject of contest
in every Greek war. What is this? The right of
doing what he pleases, openly fleecing and pillaging
the Greeks one after another, attacking and enslaving

116

DEMOSTHENES.

their cities. You were at the head of the Greeks for
seventy - three years, the Lacedaemonians for twenty-
nine, and the Thebans had some power in these latter
days after the battle of Leuctra. Yet neither yon nor
Lacedaemonians nor Thebans were ever licensed to act
as you pleased. Far otherwise. When you, or rather
the Athenians of that time, appeared to be dealing
harshly with certain people, all the rest, even such, as
had no complaint against Athens, thought proper to
side with the injured parties in a war against her. So,
when the Lacedaemonians became masters and suc¬
ceeded to your empire, on them attempting to encroach
and make oppressive innovations, a general war was
declared against them even by such as had no cause
of complaint. But why mention other people? We
ourselves and the Lacedaemonians, although at the
outset we could not allege any mutual injuries, thought
proper to make war for the injustice that we saw done
to our neighbours. Yet all the faults committed by
the Spartans in those thirty years, and by our ancestors
in the seventy, are less than the wrongs which in
thirteen incomplete years, while Philip has been upper¬
most, he has inflicted on the Greeks. Nay, they are
scarcely a fraction of them, as I may easily and briefly
show. Olynthus and Methone, and Apollonia and
thirty-two cities on the borders of Thrace, I pass over
— all which he has so cruelly destroyed that a visitor
could scarcely tell if they were ever inhabited. And
of Phocis, so considerable a people exterminated, I say
nothing. But what is the condition of Thessaly? Has
he not taken away her constitutions and her cities, and

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP

117

established tetrarchies, to parcel her out, not only by
cities, but by provinces, for subjection ? Are not the
states of Euboea now governed by despots, and Euboea
is an island near to Thebes and to Athens ? Does he
not expressly write in his epistles, “ I am at peace with
those who are willing to obey me”? Neither Greek nor
barbaric land contains the man’s ambition. And we,
the Greek community, seeing and hearing this, instead
of sending embassies to one another about it and ex¬
pressing our indignation, are in such a miserable state,
so entrenched in our separate towns, that to this day
we can attempt nothing that interest or necessity re¬
quires ; we cannot combine for succour and alliance ;
we look unconcernedly on the man’s growing power,
each resolving to enjoy the interval in which another
is destroyed, not caring nor striving for the salvation
of Greece. Whatever wrong the Greeks sustained
from Lacedaemonians or from us, was at least inflicted
by a genuine Greek people. It might be felt in the
same manner as if a lawful son, born to a large fortune,
committed some fault or error in the management of
it. On that ground, one would consider him open to
censure and to reproach ; yet it could not be said he
was an alien and not an heir to the property which
he so dealt with. But if a slave or a spurious child
wasted and spoilt that in which he had no interest,
how much more heinous and hateful would all have
pronounced it!”

On the decay of patriotism and the venality of public
men throughout Greece, he speaks thus : —

118

DEMOSTHENES.

“ There must be some cause, some good reason, why
the Greeks were so eager for liberty then, and now are so
eager for servitude. There was something in the hearts
of the multitude then which there is not now, which
overcame the wealth of Persia, and maintained the free¬
dom of Greece, and quailed not under any battle by sea
or land, the loss whereof has ruined all and thrown the
Greek world into confusion. What was this? No
subtlety or cleverness ; simply this, that whoever took
a bribe from the aspirants to power or the corrupters of
Greece was universally abhorred. It was a fearful thing
to be convicted of bribery; the severest punishment was
inflicted on the guilty, and there was no intercession
or pardon. The favourable moments for enterprise
which fortune frequently offers to the careless against
the vigilant, to them that will do nothing against those
that discharge their entire duty, could not be bought
from orators or generals ; jlo more could mutual con¬
cord, nor distrust of tyrants and barbarians, nor any¬
thing of the kind. But now all such principles have
been sold as in open market, and principles imported
in exchange by which Greece is ruined and diseased.
What are they? Envy, when a man gets a bribe;
laughter, if he confesses it ; mercy to the convicted ;
hatred of those who denounce the crime, — all the usual
accompaniments of corruption. For as to ships and
men, and revenues and abundance of other material —
all, in fact, that may be reckoned as constituting national
strength, assuredly the Greeks of our day are more
fidly and perfectly supplied with such advantages than
Greeks of the olden times. But they are all rendered

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP.

119

useless, unavailable, unprofitable by the agency of these
traffickers.”

This is indeed a powerful denunciation of a state of
things which we know to be very possible, in which
the corruption of public men is treated as a joke,
and when exposed and detected, is hardly thought to
deserve reprobation and punishment. If all that was
best in Greece had really so utterly died out, it would
seem that Demosthenes was wasting his breath in idle
declamation. But we may well believe that he clung to
the old Athenian ideal, and could not bring himself to
despair of his country. And it is certain that this and
the preceding speech produced an effect, and Athens
made efforts which were temporarily successful. “ The
work of saving Greece,” he told them before he sat
down, “ belongs to you ; this privilege your ancestors
bequeathed to you as the prize of many perilous exer¬
tions.”

As one might expect, there were those who sought
to persuade the Athenians that Philip’s power for
aggression had been greatly exaggerated, and that he
was by no means so formidable as Sparta had once
been, when she led the Peloponnesian confederacy.
Demosthenes points out that Philip had introduced
what was really a new method of warfare. Athens
and Sparta, in the height of their power, had only been
able to command a citizen militia from the states in
league with them. Such a force was prepared only for
a summer campaign, and could not always follow up
its blows effectively. Philip, on the other hand, could

120

DEMOSTHENES.

take the field in winter as well as in summer. His
troops were never disbanded, and they were under his
sole direction. He was, in fact, to the Greeks what
Napoleon was to the Austrians. An able and restless
despot, at the head of a well-trained standing army,
will often, for a time at least, have a decided advantage
in war over a free and constitutional state.

The next year, 340 b.c., events occurred which com¬
pletely justified the warnings of Demosthenes. Philip
attempted the conquest of the cities on the Propontis,
Perinthus and Byzantium. He was foiled by prompt
intervention from Athens. There was for a brief space
a doubt whether Byzantium would accept Athenian
aid, so thoroughly had the city become estranged from
Athens in consequence of the Social War. Demos¬
thenes went thither at the head of an embassy, and the
result was, that an alliance was concluded. Shortly
afterwards, the conscientious and much - respected
Phocion, though he differed politically from Demos¬
thenes, sailed thither with a powerful armament and a
force of Athenian citizens. Through the influence of
Leon, one of the leading citizens of Byzantium, who
had been Pliocion’s fellow-student at Athens in the
Academy, they were admitted into the city, and charmed
the Byzantines by then- quiet and admirable behaviour.
Succours also arrived from some of the islands of the
Aegean— from Cos, Chios, Bhodes. Byzantium was
now all but impregnable, and Philip was obliged to
abandon the siege both of it and of Perinthus. Even
his own territory was invaded by Phocion, and many
of the Macedonian cruisers were captured. Eor Philip

SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP.

121

it was a year of reverses, as for Athens it was one of
success and glory. The two cities on the Propontis
decreed her a vote of thanks, and displayed their
gratitude by erecting three colossal statues, represent¬
ing Athens receiving a wreath at their hands in testi¬
mony of their deliverance. Demosthenes, too, had his
reward. No one could question that to his counsels
and energy they owed in great measure the preservation
of the Chersonese and their supremacy at sea. Corn
cheap and abundant was for the present assured to
them. The Athenian people were in a pleased and
grateful mood, and the Assembly passed a vote of
thanks to Demosthenes, which none of his many
political enemies dared to oppose.

CHAPTER XL

CELERONEIA - FALL OF GREECE.

We must now hurry on to the decisive catastrophe
which sealed the fate of Greece and of its political
independence. Its glory had been to have been re¬
presented by an aggregate of free states, of which
Athens was immeasurably the first in culture and
civilisation. Its weakness and curse had been per¬
petual and all but irremediable rivalries and jealousies,
which went far to neutralise its collective strength
in the face of a real peril. It was now on the eve
of a revolution which the Greek mind, in spite of
many a warning from Demosthenes, had never been
able to bring itself to contemplate as possible. He had
done his best, as we have seen, to retard it amid end¬
less discouragements, and to the last we shall find him
faithful to the cause of which he never once seems to
have allowed himself to despair. In the train of events
which culminated in Chseroneia we find him bearing a
conspicuous and honourable part.

Philip’s career, as we have just seen, had been
temporarily checked ; and at the close of the year 340
b.c. Athens might almost congratulate herself on all

CH jER ONEIA — FA LL OF GREECE.

123

danger having passed away. In the spring of 339 b.c.
the King met with another disaster. He had plunged
into the wilds of Scythia, north of the Danube, and had
carried off a vast booty of flocks and herds from the
barbarous people; hut on his return through Thrace he
was attacked by the Triballi, one of the fiercest and
most warlike of the tribes of that dangerous region.
We know what it is for a regular and well-equipped
army to have to march through an intricate and hostile
country. The king of Macedon, encumbered as he
was with spoil, was taken at a disadvantage, and if
not actually defeated, he was at least worsted, lost his
plunder, and was himself badly wounded. Thus the
year 339 b.c. seemed one of good omen for Athens and
for Greece. And thanks to the vigorous efforts of
Demosthenes in the way of naval reform, the Athenian
fleet was now supreme in the iEgean.

Meanwhile a new sacred war in behalf of the god
and temple of Delphi was unfortunately breaking out.
It arose out of incidents which may seem to us com¬
paratively trifling. An Amphictyonic Council had
assembled at Delphi in the autumn of 340 b.c., and
Athens was represented by Aeschines. The fruitful
plain of Crisa, stretching inland from the Gulf of
Corinth to the town of Amphissa, under the mountains
of Parnassus, was the consecrated possession of the
Delphic god. It was holy ground, and to till or to
plant it had been forbidden with a tremendous curse.
Part of it, however, adjacent to the town and port of
Cirrha, had, almost with the sanction of Greek opinion,
been occupied and brought into cultivation for a long

124

DEMOSTHENES.

period by the Locrians. Between them and the
Pliocians there had been a long-standing feud, which
reached a climax in the recent Sacred War. The Loc¬
rians in that war had sided with Philip and the Thebans
against their sacrilegious neighbours. Consequently,
after the destruction of Phocis, they had a sore feeling
towards Athens as the ally of the Pliocians. One of
their deputies, on the occasion of which we are speaking,
rudely gave expression to this feeling, and went so far
as to revile the Athenians, and to imply that an alliance
with such a people was in itself equivalent to the guilt
of sacrilege. Possibly the man may have wished to
curry favour with the Thebans, to whose disgust some
golden shields had just been set up by the Athenians
in a new chapel at Delphi, with an inscription com¬
memorating the victory of Athens over Persia and
Thebes at Platsea a century and a half ago. This
small incident was dwelt upon by the Locrian orator in
violent and intemperate language. “Do not,” said he,
“ permit the name of the Athenian people to be pro¬
nounced among you at this holy season. Turn them
out of the sacred ground like men under a curse.”

iEschines, the Athenian representative (he describes
the affair himself in his great speech against Ctesiphon,
or, we may say, against Demosthenes), savagely re¬
torted. He pointed to the plain of Crisa, visible from
the spot where they were assembled. “You see,” he
said, “ that plain cultivated by the Locrians of Am-
phissa, covered with their farm-buildings. You have
under your eyes the port of Cirrha, consecrated by
your forefathers’ oath, now occupied and fortified.”

CHJSR0NE1A — FALL OF GREECE.

125

Then he caused the ancient oracle, the oath with its
dreadful curse, to he read out before the Council.
“ Here am I,” he went on to say, “ ready to defend
the property of the god according to your forefathers’
oath. I stand prepared to clear my own city of her
obligations. Do you take counsel for yourselves.
You are here to pray for blessings to the gods, publicly
and individually. Where will you find voiae or heart
or courage to offer such a prayer if you let these ac¬
cursed Locrians of Amphissa remain unpunished 1 ”

The appeal of iEschines produced an instantaneous
effect. The excitement was prodigious ; and the Coun¬
cil in a moment of fury passed a resolution that on the
morrow all the population of Delphi were to assemble
with spades and pickaxes, and sweep away from the
sacred plain every trace of the impious tillage and
cultivation. Next day this mad proposal was actually
carried into effect. The furious mob rushed across the
plain into the town of Cirrlia, and pillaged and fired
the place. On their return, however, they were met
by the Locrians of Amphissa with an armed force, and
obliged to take refuge in Delphi. There was no blood¬
shed, even under these circumstances of provocation,
as the aggrieved owners of the destroyed property were
restrained by a sentiment of reverence for the Ampliic-
tyonic Council. Here is, indeed, a striking evidence
of the respect felt for the traditions of the god of
Delphi and his ancient temple, the centre of the
religious life of Greece. Again, on the following day,
the Council met, and after warm praise had been
bestowed on Athens as the avenger of Apollo’s rights.

126

DEMOSTHENES.

the people of Amphissa were denounced as having
incurred the guilt of sacrilege; and it was finally
decided that the Amphictyonic deputies should shortly
assemble at Thermopylae to consider how they were to
be punished.

A new sacred war was thus in effect begun six years
after the disastrous termination of the previous war in
346 b.c. That had ended in the destruction of a mem¬
ber of the Greek community ; this was to end in the
ruin and fall of Greece. The danger was not at once
perceived at Athens. We cannot wonder at this.
Aeschines’ vindication of his countrymen at the Coun¬
cil might well seem spirited and patriotic. Athens,
through him, had stood forward as the champion of
the god of Delphi. It was easy for him to argue that
those who took a different view, and regretted the rash
act to which the Amphictyons had been prompted by
his oratory, were little better than the paid agents of
those sacrilegious Locrians, who had allowed one of
their speakers openly to insult Athens. Demosthenes,
however — so he tells us — at once declared in the As¬
sembly, “ You are bringing war into Attica, Aeschines —
an Amphictyonic war.” The popular sentiment at the
time was in favour of iEschines, and this his political
rival must have known and felt. Still, Demosthenes
was able — a proof this of the high respect in which he
was held — to persuade the people not to send any
deputies to the special congress at Thermopylae, which
was to deliberate on the punishment of the Locrians.
Thebes, too, allowed herself to be unrepresented. War
was decided on ; the Locrian territory was invaded,

CHAERONEIA—FA LL OF GREECE.

127

and a fine imposed on the Locrians,' the payment of
which, however, the army was not sufficiently power¬
ful to compel.

The congress of which we have just spoken was not
the regular Amphictyonic meeting. This was held in
the autumn of 339 b.c. Philip by that time had
returned to his kingdom. The meeting was now at
Delphi; and Athens, as might be expected, took part
in it. iEschines again was one of her representatives.
It was on this occasion that the fatal step was taken
of invoking the aid of Philip. It is not very difficult
to understand how such a vote was carried. Macedon
itself was a member of the Council ; and so, too, were
several states like Thessaly and Phthiotis, which now
were simply Macedonian dependencies. /Eschines, it
may be from really corrupt motives, supported the
vote. Accordingly Philip was elected general of the
Amphictyonic army ; and a request was forwarded to
him that “ he would march to the aid of Apollo and
the Amphictyons, and not suffer the rights of the god
to be invaded by the impious Locrians of Amphissa.”

The die was now cast. The peril to Greece might
possibly even yet have been warded off; but it was
great and imminent. And Thebes and Athens, on
whom all now depended, were still notoriously un¬
reconciled. Philip, of course, instantly accepted the
CounciTs invitation. He would enter Greece as the
representative of a holy cause, as well as the head of a
very powerful army. From Thermopylae he marched
straight through Phocis to Elateia, the chief Phocian
town and the key to southern Greece. It was not sixty

128

DEMOSTHENES.

miles from the Athenian frontier. Here he halted and
began to establish a regular camp. This was in itself
alarming. His next step was to send a message to
Thebes inviting the co-operation of the Thebans in an
attack on Attica.

In a graphic passage in the most famous of his
speeches, Demosthenes describes the impression made
at Athens by the news that Philip was at Elateia.

“It was evening,” he says, “when a messenger arrived
with tidings for the Presidents that Elateia was taken.
They rose instantly from the public supper-table ; some
drove the people from the stalls in the Forum, and set
fire to the wicker-work in order to clear the space;
others sent for the generals, and called the trumpeter.
The whole city was in commotion. Next morning, at
break of day, the Presidents convoked the Senate in
the Senate House, and you repaired to the Assembly,
and before the Senate could enter upon business, or
draw up the decree to be submitted to you, all the
people had taken their seats in the Pnyx. When the
Senate had entered — when the Presidents had commu¬
nicated the intelligence which had been brought to
them — when the messenger had been introduced, and
related his tidings, — the herald made proclamation,
£ Who desires to speak ? ’ But no one came forward.
Again and again did the herald repeat the proclama¬
tion ; our country’s voice called out for a man to speak
and save her ; for the voice of the herald raised at the
law’s command should be regarded as the voice of our
common country. Still not a man came forward.”

CHARON El A— FALL OF GREECE.

120

In tills crisis Demosthenes gave Ills counsel. It was
to the following effect : — •

“I said,” he tells us, “that the dismay of those
who suppose that Philip could still count on the
Thebans must proceed from an ignorance of the real
state of the case. If that were so, it would not
he at Elateia — it would he on our own frontier —
that we should hear of Philip. That he had come to
make things ready for him in Thebes I knew well.
But mark, I said, how the matter stands. Every
man in Thebes whom money can buy, every man
whom flattery can gain, has long ago been secured.
But he is totally unable to prevail upon those who
have withstood him from the beginning, and who are
opposing him still. What, then, has brought Philip to
Elateia1? He hopes, by a military demonstration in
your neighbourhood, and by bringing up his army, to
raise the courage and confidence of his friends, and to
strike terror into his enemies, so that they may be
frightened or coerced into surrendering what hitherto
they have been unwilling to concede. If, then, I said,
we choose at this crisis to remember every ill turn
which the Thebans have done us, and to distrust them
and treat them as enemies, in the first place we shall
be doing the very thing which Philip most desires ; and
next, I fear that, his present adversaries embracing his
cause, they will all fall on Attica together. If you will
be advised by me, and regard what I am about to say
as matter for reflection rather than for disputation, I
believe that my counsel will obtain your approbation,
and be the means of averting the peril which now

a.c.s.s. vol. iv.

i

130

DEMOSTHENES.

threatens the State. What, then, do I advise ? First,
shake off this panic — or rather change the direction of
your fears from yourselves to the Thebans, for they are
far nearer ruin than ourselves. The danger is theirs
before it is ours. Next, let all citizens of military age
and all your cavalry march to Eleusis, and show your¬
selves to the world in arms, that the Thebans who are
on your side may be as bold as their adversaries, and
speak out in the cause of right, with the assurance
that, if there is at Elateia a force at hand to support
the party who have sold their country to Philip, your
forces are no less at the disposal of those who would
light for freedom, and ready to succour them in case
of attack. Make no conditions with the Thebans. It
would be unworthy on such an occasion. Simply de¬
clare your readiness to succour them, on the assump¬
tion that their peril is imminent, and that you are in a
better position than they to forecast the future. If
they accept our offer and adopt our views, we shall
have attained our object, and pursued a policy worthy
of our country. If anything should mar the project,
they will have only themselves to blame, and we shall
have nothing to blush for in our part of the transac¬
tion.”

Such was the counsel of Demosthenes in this great
crisis. It was instantly adopted by the Assembly
without a dissentient voice. The matter did not stop
here. “Not only did I make a speech,” Demosthenes
tells us, “but I proposed a decree. Not only did I
propose the decree, but I went upon the embassy. Not

CHARON El A— FA LL OF GREECE.

131

only went I on the embassy, but T prevailed on the
Thebans.” At Thebes the orator had to confront the
envoys of Philip, backed up by the Philippising party
and by the old Theban animosity towards Athens.
Each embassy was heard, according to Greek custom,
before the Theban Assembly. Philip had eloquent
advocates who suggested plausible reasons why he
should be allowed to march through Boeotia and to
humble the old enemy of Thebes. Unfortunately, we
have not the reply of Demosthenes. We know, how¬
ever, from the historian of the time, Theopompus, that
he rose to the occasion, and convinced the wavering
Thebans, by an impressive appeal to every Greek and
patriotic sentiment, that it was their duty and interest
to accept the offered alliance. It was a signal triumph
— one, too, achieved under extreme difficulties.

It must, indeed, have been a proud moment for De¬
mosthenes when he saw his country’s army march
across the Attic frontier and enter Boeotia at the
Theban invitation. All distrust and jealousy had now
passed away; and the two states, between whom there
had been long and bitter rivalry, had at last made up
their mind to co-operate in a common cause. As it
had been at Byzantium, so was it now at Thebes. The
Athenian soldiers received a hearty welcome, and were
hospitably entertained in the houses of the city.

“With such cordiality,” says Demosthenes in his
speech on the Crown, “did they welcome you, that while
their own infantry and cavalry were quartered outside
the walls, they received your army within their city and

132

DEMOSTHENES.

their homes, among their wives and all that they held
most precious. On that day the Thebans gave you, in
the face of all mankind, three of the highest testimonials
— the first of your valour, the second of your justice,
and the third of your good conduct. For in choosing
to fight with you rather than against you, they judged
that you were better soldiers, and engaged in a better
cause than Philip ; and by intrusting to you that
which they in common with all mankind regard with
the most jealous watchfulness, their children and then'
wives, they manifested their confidence in your good,
conduct. The result showed that they were well war¬
ranted in thek trust; for after the army entered their
city, not a single complaint, well or ill founded, was
made against you, so orderly was your behaviour. And
when your soldiers stood side by side with then hosts
in two successive engagements, their discipline, their
equipments, their courage, were such as not only to
challenge criticism, but to command admiration.”

Two slight successes, indeed, were won by the united
armies of Thebes and Athens. Of the campaign we
have no detailed narrative, and of the final battle we
have but an imperfect and unsatisfactory description.
It would have been most interesting to have had such
an account of it as Xenophon has given us of Leuctra
and Mantineia. It was fought near Clneroneia, close
to the borders of Phocis, — a town of little importance,
but memorable from its historical associations. More
than two centuries afterwards, a great victory was won
there by Sulla over an army of Mithridates. It was,

CHAIR ONE I A — FA LL OF GREECE.

133

too, the birthplace of Plutarch, and to it he retired
from Rome in his old age. On this occasion it would
seem that as to numbers the forces were evenly
matched. But the Greek army was without a general
of any marked ability. Phocion, by far the best
Athenian officer, was absent with the fleet in the
Aegean. A commander of the first order — a man, for
example, of the calibre of Epameinondas — might have
tinned the scale, and no doubt would have done so
had there been a powerful contingent from Sparta and
the Peloponnese. United Greece, it is probable, could
even yet have crushed Philip. As it was, all may be
said to have depended on Athens and Thebes, though
a few other states furnished some soldiers. The Mace¬
donian army was both skilfully commanded and was
very formidable in itself. It was led by Philip and
by his young son Alexander; and he it was, it appears,
to whom the victory was mainly due. He was opposed
to the Theban phalanx — the Sacred band, as it was called
— which fell fighting to a man. It is certain that the
battle was obstinately contested, and almost equally
certain that it was decided by superiority of general¬
ship. The Athenians, after their wont, dashed upon
the enemy with furious impetuosity ; but a citizen
militia, however brave and enthusiastic, unless they
were victorious at the first onset, could hardly be
expected to stand long against such troops as
Philip’s trained veterans. They did, according to one
account, put the enemy to flight, and their general
exclaimed, “ Let us pursue them even to Macedonia.”
But the end was complete defeat for the Greek army,

134

DEMOSTHENES.

and the year 338 b.c. witnessed the fall of Greek in¬
dependence.

To Thebes the result was immediate ruin. Its cita¬
del was at once occupied by a Macedonian garrison,
and its government put under Macedonian control.
Athens, 1000 of whose citizens had fallen, and 2000
been taken prisoners, was in an agony of distress; but
she did not allow herself to despair. Isocrates, still
alive in his 99 th year, though he had been politically
opposed to Demosthenes and had cherished the idea of
a united Greece under the leadership of the king of
Macedon, was heart-broken, and refused to live any
longer. He was a true patriot; and

“ That dishonest victory
At CliEeroneia, fatal to liberty,

Killed with report that old man eloquent.”

Demosthenes had fought in his countrymen’s ranks,
and had fled with the rest; but though his enemies
taunted him with cowardice, he had the honour of pro¬
nouncing the funeral panegyric over the fallen. His
counsels had been followed ; the result had been dis¬
astrous ; yet he still evidently retained the confidence
and esteem of the people. Athens recovered her cap¬
tured citizens without ransom, for the conqueror chose
to be generous; but the cause for which she had
fought was a thing of the past. Demosthenes must
have felt after CliEeroneia as Pitt felt after Austerlitz
when he closed the map of Europe. His efforts had
been rewarded with the gratitude of his countrymen,
but they had not been rewarded with success.

CHAPTER XTT.

CONTEST BETWEEN DEMOSTHENES AND /ESCIIINES.

Philip was now the acknowledged head of the Greek
world. Pliocion, Athens’ best soldier, as well as a highly
honourable citizen, told the Athenians that they must
acquiesce in this result. Demosthenes had not a word
left to say on foreign policy. The subject was, in fact,
closed. He was continually and virulently attacked
by his political opponents, but he was too strong for
them. He spoke the funeral eulogy at the obsequies
of the slam in the great battle — an honour to which he
was chosen in preference to HCschines, as well as to
Demades, who had negotiated the peace. He held,
too, more than one important office. He was treasurer
of the Theoric fund, which provided Athens .with her
grand dramatic entertainments ; and in this capacity he
had a considerable control over the finances generally.
He was also superintendent of the pity walls and fortifi¬
cations. He must thus have had the character of an
able and upright man of business. And he continued
to follow the profession of the bar, and found abundant
employment.

In 336 b.c. Philip was assassinated. It seems that

136

I) E MO S Til E N E S.

Demosthenes, though at the time he was mourning the
death of an only daughter, showed an excessive joy by
appearing in public in a white dress with a garland on
his head, and performing a solemn sacrifice of thanks¬
giving. Could he have indulged in the dream that all
was now to be reversed, and that Greece was again to be
free ? Macedon, no doubt, with its sudden growth of
power, might have collapsed, had Philip’s son and suc¬
cessor been an imbecile. And it appears that Demos¬
thenes thought meanly of the young Alexander. He com¬
pared him to Margites, the hero of a comic poem which
tradition attributed to Homer. Margites was a man
who “ knew many things, but knew them all badly ; ”
he was a sort of “ Jack of all trades and master of
none.” Alexander was famous for the variety of his
studies and pursuits; and it was this, it may be supposed,
which gave point to the comparison. Demosthenes’ idea
of him was, that he was a studious, bookish young man,
of whom the world would never hear much. The fact
that he was only twenty years of age at the time of liis
father’s death may have reasonably encouraged Demos¬
thenes to believe that Greece had some chance of throw¬
ing off the yoke imposed on her by her defeat at Clne-
roneia. He did not think it "wrong to correspond with
Persia, and to avail himself of Persian gold, with the
view of frustrating Philip’s designs on Asia. We can
hardly censure him for this, when we remember that it
was done for the patriotic purpose of freeing Greece
from its present position of a Macedonian dependency.
If he used questionable means, he at least had the
merit of standing by the old cause. But, of course, it

DEMOSTHENES AND ;E SC 1IINES.

137

was easy for his enemies to represent his conduct in an
odious light.

Three years after Chseroneia, Alexander, after a suc¬
cessful expedition into Thrace, and a victory over the
barbarous and warlike Getse on the further bank of
the Danube, hurried with marvellous rapidity south¬
wards to crush a movement of revolt in Thebes. There
was, as we have seen, a Macedonian garrison in the city.
There was, too, a powerful political party which urged
prompt submission. Alexander himself was particu¬
larly anxious not to drive matters to extremities. But
the party which had instigated the movement knew
that they could not hope for mercy ; and, by appealing
to the cause of Greek freedom, persuaded the people to
reject all offers of peace. The unhappy city was cap¬
tured by assault, and every house but that of the poet
Pindar and those of his descendants was razed to the

ground.

0 #

“ The great Emathian conqueror bade spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground.”

It was a terrible doom, but it was approved by the
towns of Boeotia; and but for the brief grandeur to
which Thebes rose under Epameinondas, and her share
in the battle of Chseroneia, we may almost say it was
deserved. She had been a traitor to the common cause
in the great struggle with Persia ; and afterwards, with
a peculiar baseness, she had urged Sparta to slaughter,
in cold blood, the brave Platseans, whose only crime
was, that they had sided with Athens in the Pelopon-

138

DEMOSTHENES.

nesian War. Thebes was now blotted out of existence.
Again Athens trembled. Alexander, there was reason
to believe, was magnanimous ; hut it was impossible to
say how he might deal with a city which had been so
persistently hostile to his father. At the suggestion of
Demades, an embassy of congratulation was sent to
him. The people were to express their joy not only on
his safe return from the Danube, but on the extinction
of Thebes. It was, as Dr Thirlwall happily calls it,
“ impudent obsequiousness.” Alexander’s answer was
a demand for the surrender of the nine chief anti-
Macedonian orators, — Demosthenes, of course, included.
But the demand was waived, chiefly, it seems, through
the opportune intervention of Phocion, whom Alex¬
ander highly respected.

The next year he crossed the Hellespont into Asia.
Four years from that time sufficed for the overthrow
of the Persian empire. Darius, the last king of Persia,
was murdered in 330 b.c. That same year witnessed
an abortive attempt hi Greece against Macedonian
supremacy. It was bravely led by a king of Sparta,
who fell in a hard-fought battle near Megalopolis with
Antipater, to whom Alexander had intrusted his king¬
dom during his absence. Greece could now no longer
even dream of independence. Anything like an anti-
Macedonian policy would be preposterous ; and there
was thus an opportunity at Athens of attempting to
rouse popular feeling against any statesman who had
advocated that policy, the end of which had been so
fatal to Greece.

It was under these circumstances that iEschines

DEMOSTHENES AND jE SC HINES.

139

made a great effort to crush his old rival. It had been
proposed by Ctesiphon, in the year after Chyeroneia,
that a public testimonial to the worth of Demosthenes
should be given him in the form of .a golden crown ;
and that the honour should be proclaimed on the
occasion of one of those great dramatic festivals, when
the city was crowded with visitors from every part
of Greece. The proposal had been approved by the
Athenian Senate, but it had yet to be submitted to the
popular assembly. Aeschines at the time denounced
it as unconstitutional, and opposed it by one of the
recognised modes of legal procedure. Technically,
indeed, the motion of Ctesiphon was illegal. Demos¬
thenes, as we have stated, was holding two offices ; he
was superintendent of fortifications and treasurer of
the Theoric fund. It was contrary to Athenian law
to bestow the honour of a crown on an officer before
his accounts had been audited ; it was also forbidden
that such an honour should be proclaimed anywhere
else than in the Pnyx, the regular place of the people’s
assembly. According to the motion of the proposer,
it would have been proclaimed in the theatre. Aes¬
chines could, therefore, argue that it was in two points
illegal. But he wished to win a decisive victory ; and
he accordingly waited for some years, and finally
rested his case on the argument that Demosthenes, as
a public man, was undeserving of the honour. It is
this which gives interest to his extant speech. He
laboured to convince the Athenians that his rival
could not have been thoroughly sincere in his anti-
Macedonian professions, because he had let slip three

140

DEMO ST II ENES.

important opportunities. Demosthenes had done
nothing, so he argued, when Alexander first crossed
into Asia ; or when he was supposed to be in great
jeopardy just before the battle of Issus in 333 b.c. ;
or lastly, when Sparta, as has been stated, made an
attempt at resistance. It was in the year of this
unsuccessful attempt — the year 330 b.c., when Mace-
don was triumphant both in Asia and Greece — that
this memorable cause between the two rival orators
was heard before the Athenian assembly. As might
have been expected, there was a numerous gathering both
of citizens and strangers, very many of whom were
well qualified to be keen critics of the great contest.

The question really to be decided — and this was the
issue which AEschines was anxious to raise — was, Had
Demosthenes been a good or bad citizen'? had he
honestly at all times and seasons stood by the cause
in which he so earnestly professed to believe 1 Demos¬
thenes’ reply to this question is the vindication of his
political life. The cause for which he had exerted
himself, though finally unsuccessful, was, he maintains,
the true and the right cause. Had he foreseen the end
from the beginning, he would have spoken and acted
as he did. He reviews his policy from the peace of
346 b.c., concluded just after Philip’s destruction of
Phocis, down to the king’s death ten years afterwards.
To all this he looks back with satisfaction and pride.
In defending himself he attacks his rival, and de¬
nounces him as really the author of the calamities
which had fallen on the Greek world. It was
through the diplomacy of TEseliines, he declares, that

DEMOSTHENES AND AESCHINES.

141

Philip was admitted to Thermopylae, the beginning of
all the subsequent mischief. If it was dreadful to
think of Greece being under a foreign master, it was a
glorious fact that Athens had done her best to avert
such a disgrace.

This is the drift and purport of the great speech on
the Crown, as it is usually called. It has been well
described by Mr Grote as “ a funeral oration on ex¬
tinct Athenian and Grecian freedom.” “ It breathes,”
says Dr Thirlwall, “ the spirit of that high philosophy
which, whether learnt in the schools or from life, has
consoled the noblest of our kind in prisons and on
scaffolds, and under every persecution of adverse
fortune, but in the tone necessary to impress a mixed
multitude with a like feeling, and to elevate it for a
while into a sphere above its own.”

Some passages from this oration have already been
quoted in the preceding chapter; and it is due to
the reader to give him some further specimens of,
perhaps, the greatest of all the oratorical efforts of
Demosthenes.

Here is a passage in which the speaker dwells on the
generous and magnanimous temper of his countrymen
in their best days : —

“ Let me for a moment bring before your eyes one
or two of the brightest passages in the history of our
times. Lacedaunon was paramount by sea and land ;
she had a belt of garrisons about the frontiers of our
territory; Euboea, Tanagra, all Eoeotia, Megara, Higina,
Cleona3, every island on the coast. We had neither

142

DEMOSTIIEN E S.

ships nor walls ; we were in no want (had we chosen
to remember the Decelean war) of grievances either
against Corinth or Thebes. And yet the arms of
Athens were seen at Haliartus, and in a few days after
at Corinth. You had something better to do than to
recall the injuries of the past. . . .

“ The sacrifice in either case was not made for a
benefactor, neither was it made without risk. You held
that no reason for abandoning to their fate men who
had thrown themselves on your compassion. Honour
and renown were a sufficient motive to lead you into
danger, and who shall say you were wrong 1 Life must
cease ; death must come at some time, though one
should steal into a cellar to avoid him. The brave are
ever ready to set forth on the path of glory, armed
with high hope and courage, prepared to accept with¬
out a murmur the fate which heaven may ordain. Thus
did your forefathers ; thus did the elders among your¬
selves, who interposed and frustrated the attempts of
the Thebans after their victory at Leuctra to destroy
Sparta, though from Sparta you had experienced neither
friendship nor good offices, but many grievous wrongs.
You neither quailed before the power and renown which
Thebes then possessed, nor were you deterred by any
thought of your past treatment by Sparta. Thus did
you proclaim to all the Greeks, that how much soever
any of them may offend against you, you reserve your
resentment for other occasions ; but that if danger
threaten their existence or their liberties, you will
take no account of — you will not even remember — your
wrongs.”

DEMOSTHENES AND AESCHINES.

143

This is his answer to those who persisted in saying
that it was Philip — Philip alone — who had brought all
their troubles on them : — •

“ Do not go about repeating that Greece owes all her
misfortunes to one man. No, not to one man, hut to
many abandoned men distributed throughout the differ¬
ent states, of whom, by earth and heaven, yEschines is
one. If the truth were to be spoken without reserve,
I should not hesitate to call him the common scourge
of all the men, the districts, and the cities which have
perished ; for the sower of the seed is answerable for
the crop. I am astonished you did not turn your faces
from him the moment you beheld him ; but thick dark¬
ness would seem to veil your eyes.”

He maintains that the action of the State had been
right and honourable, though it had failed.

“ I affirm that if the future had been apparent to us
all — if you, iEschin.es, had foretold it and proclaimed
it at the top of your voice instead of preserving total
silence, — nevertheless the State ought not to have devi¬
ated from her course, if she had regard to her own hon¬
our, the traditions of the past, or the judgment of poster¬
ity. As it is, she is looked upon as having failed in her
policy, — the common lot of all mankind when such is
the will of heaven ; but if, claiming to be the foremost
state of Greece, she had deserted her post, she would
have incurred the reproach of betraying Greece to Philip.
If we had abandoned without a struggle all which
our forefathers braved every danger to win, who would
not have spurned you, yEscliines 1 God forbid that I

144

DEMOSTHENES.

should so speak of the State as of myself. How could
we have looked in the face the strangers who flock
to our city, if things had reached their present pass —
Philip the chosen leader and lord of all — while others
without our assistance had borne the struggle to avert
this consummation rl We ! who have never in times
past preferred inglorious safety to peril in the path of
honour. Is there a Greek or a barbarian who does
not know that Thebes at the height of her power, and
Sparta before her — ay, and even the king of Persia
himself — would have been only glad to compromise
with us, and that we might have had what we chose,
and possessed our own in peace, had we been willing
to obey orders and to suffer another to put himself at
the head of Greece 1 But it was not possible, — it was
not a thing which the Athenians of those days could
do. It was against their nature, their genius, and their
traditions ; and no human persuasion could induce them
to side with a wrong-doer because he was powerful, and
to embrace subjection because it was safe. Ho; to the
last our country has fought and jeopardised herself for
honour and glory and pre-eminence. A noble choice,
in harmony with your national character, as you testify
by your respect for the memories of your ancestors who
have so acted. And you are in the right; for who can
withhold admiration from the heroism of the men who
shrank not from leaving their city and their fatherland,
and embarking in their war-sliips, rather than submit to
foreign dictation 1 Why, Themistocles, who counselled
this step, was elected general ; and the man who coun¬
selled submission was stoned to death — and not he

DEMOSTHENES AND AESCHINES.

145

only, for his wife was stoned by your wives, as lie was
by you. The Athenians of those days went not in
quest of an orator or a general who could help them to
prosperous slavery; but they scorned life itself, if it
were not the life of freedom. Each of them regarded
himself as the child not only of his father and of his
mother, but of his country; and what is the difference'?
He who looks on himself as merely the child of his
parents, awaits death in the ordinary course of nature ;
while he who looks on himself as the child also of his
country, will be ready to lay down his life rather than
see her enslaved, and will hold deatli itself less terrible
than the insults and indignities which the citizens of a
state in slavery to the foreigner must endure. .

“ Do I take credit to myself for having inspired you
with sentiments worthy of your ancestors ? Such pre¬
sumption would expose me to the just rebuke of every
man who hears me. What I maintain is, that these
very sentiments are your own; that the spirit of
Athens was the same before my time, — though I do
claim to have had a share in the application of these
principles to each successive crisis. iEschines, there¬
fore, when he impeaches our whole policy, and seeks
to exasperate you against me as the author of all your
alarms and perils, in his anxiety to deprive me of
present credit, is really labouring to rob you of your
everlasting renown. If by your vote against Ctesiphon
you condemn my policy, you will pronounce yourselves
to have been in the wrong, instead of having suffered
what has befallen you through the cruel injustice of
fortune. But it cannot be : you have not been in the

A.C.S.S. vol. IV.

K

146

DEMO ST 11 EX ES.

wrong, men of Athens, in doing battle for the freedom
and salvation of all ; I swear it by your forefathers,
who bore the battle’s brunt at Marathon ; by those
who stood in arms at Platoea; by those who fought
the sea-fight at Salamis ; by the heroes of Artemisium,
and many more whose resting-place in our national
monuments attests that, as our country buried, so she
honoured, all alike — victors and vanquished. She
was right; for what brave men could do, all did,
though a higher power was master of their fate.”

This, perhaps, is the most striking of the many
striking passages in this great speech. Demosthenes
carried his audience with him. His rival did not
obtain a fifth of the votes. His position as an orator
and statesman was destroyed. His discomfiture had
been witnessed by the whole Greek world. In his
mortification he left his native city for Ehodes, where
he set up a school of rhetoric. The story was told
that he once declaimed to his pupils the speech
which had driven him into exile ; and in reply to
the applause with which it was greeted, exclaimed,
“ What if you had heard the beast himself speak-
it?”

CHAPTEB XIII.

LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES.

Demosthenes had won a splendid triumph, which lie
survived eight years. But they were years by no
means unclouded. They were darkened by an un¬
fortunate incident, which we proceed brieily to narrate.

From 330 to 324 b.c., we hear nothing of the great
orator. Athens, in fact, had no politics for him to
discuss. He could have had nothing to do but to
advise private clients. By the year 324 Alexander
had returned from that long expedition in which he
had carried his army through the heart of Asia to the
banks of the Indus. He had left behind him one of
his old Macedonian friends in the government of the
rich satrapy of Babylonia. Harpalus (this was the
man’s name) was greedy and extravagant, and wasted
the resources of his province in a luxury which he had
learnt during his residence in the East. It was said
that he loaded his table with the most costly delicacies,
and filled his gardens with exotic plants of every
variety. He had found it convenient to please the
people of Athens by splendid presents, and particu¬
larly by very liberal gifts of wheat for free and general

148

DEMOSTHENES.

distribution. For all this he had received votes of
thanks and been made an Athenian citizen. He was
afraid, however, to face Alexander, who, he well knew,
showed no mercy to delinquent satraps. So he fled
from Asia to Europe with an immense treasure of 5000
talents (about a million and a quarter pounds sterling),
and landed at Cape Sunium, in Attica. He might
reasonably flatter himself that he would not be an
unwelcome visitor at Athens, but in this he was dis¬
appointed. There was the fear of the wrath of
Alexander; and the fear, too, that Harpalus might
possibly intend to assume the position of a tyrant or
despot. His offers, whatever they were, were rejected;
but there was a debate in the Assembly, and a rumour
reached Alexander that Athens had received him and
his armament. This was at the time untrue ; but
when he sent away his ships and asked leave to be
admitted into the city with a few personal attendants,
the people, remembering his past favours, no longer
refused. Having gained his point, he tried to per¬
suade them that they might defy Alexander with a
prospect of success, and that he was himself able and
willing to furnish them with the necessary funds.
Some of the orators supported his views. But he
could do nothing with Phocion or with Demosthenes.
This was fatal to his project. Soon there came
envoys from Antipater, Alexander’s deputy in Mace¬
donia, requiring his surrender. But this both Phocion
and Demosthenes, notwithstanding the danger of the
crisis, opposed. So alarmed, however, were the people
at the thought of Alexander’s probable vengeance, that

LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES.

149

they decided on arresting Harpalus and sequestrating
his treasure till they could learn what view Alexander
took of the matter; and this much they did on the
motion of Demosthenes himself. It seems possible, as
has been suggested, that Demosthenes proposed this
motion with an arriere-pensee , and may have wished
to detain Harpalus and his treasure, and to wait the
course of events. Harpalus contrived to escape ; hut
his treasure — that part of it at least which he had
brought to Athens after dismissing his fleet, and which
amounted, according to statements made by Demos¬
thenes on his authority, to about 720 talents — remained
behind. This, of course, ought to have been returned —
and the people were, it seems, prepared to do so ; but
when the money was counted it was found that there
was no more than 350 talents, barely half the original
sum. How was the deficiency to be explained ?
There was a great stir and outcry. People said that
it must have been used in bribery, and that the
missing money must have stuck to the fingers of the
orators and public men. There was a general feeling
that somebody ought to be punished, but there was
not a scrap of evidence against any one, and no means
of procuring it.

Demosthenes proposed to have the affair investigated
by the court of Areopagus. It was not easy to see wliat
better course could have been taken. At the same time,
the members of that court must have felt that they could
hardly hope, under the circumstances, to arrive at a per¬
fectly satisfactory result. Ho doubt they commanded
the public confidence, as they were all men of age and

150

DEMOSTHENES.

experience, and were from their position above the
motives which occasionally swayed other courts. Great
latitude was allowed them ; and practically they often
decided cases not simply on the evidence before them,
but on hearsay, and on that personal knowledge which
men in their rank would be sure to possess. They
took the utmost pains with the present inquiry, and
were engaged on it for six months. They went so far as
to search the houses of the principal public men, with
the exception of one who had been lately married — an
exception perhaps to be attributed to a sense of delicacy.
At last they published their report, with a list of the
names of persons whom they considered chargeable with
having improperly possessed themselves of the missing
money.

In this list appeared the name of Demosthenes as
a debtor to the amount of twenty talents. The next
step was to give the accused parties the choice of
taking their trial or of paying the sum with which the
Areopagus had debited them. Of those brought to
trial, Demosthenes was the first. He was tried before
a jury of 1500 of his fellow-citizens, was found guilty,
and sentenced to pay a fine of fifty talents (about
£12,000). It is very possible that among the jury
which condemned him there may have been many who
wished to please Alexander, and many, too, of the
friends of Harpalus. It must, however, be remem¬
bered that the decision of the Areopagus could not
fail to influence their verdict. Demosthenes would
not or could not pay the fine. He was imprisoned,
but in a few days was able to escape to Troezen, in the

LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES .

151

territory of Argos. It was but a few months that he
remained there.

We can hardly bring ourselves to believe that lie
was really guilty. Of course we can judge only
by probabilities ; and it is certain that the court of
Areopagus must have had grounds for their suspicion.
We must bear in mind that they merely drew up a
list of persons whose case in their opinion required
further judicial inquiry. There is no reason for assum¬
ing that they regarded the guilt of Demosthenes as
certain. The inquiry was long and difficult ; and the
decision ultimately arrived at could have been hardly
meant to express confident assurance. If Demosthenes
publicly stated, on Ilarpalus’s authority, the amount of
the treasure, it seems strange that he should have made
himself a party to the disappearance of a portion of it.
It may be that the statement he made had not been
verified by him, and it may have been altogether errone¬
ous. It is pleasant to find that both Dr Thirl wall and
Mr Grote incline to acquit him of this mean dishonesty.

It may be worth while to mention a story told by Plut¬
arch about this painful passage in the life of Demos¬
thenes. Like many of his stories, it is probably a pure
fiction, but it is at least amusing. Harpalus, he tells
us, won over the orator to his side by sending him a
singularly beautiful golden cup, his admiration of which
he had noted. Along with the cup were twenty talents,
the sum with which the Areopagus had debited him.
Shortly afterwards, when the proposals of Harpalus
were being discussed in the t Assembly, Demosthenes,
who had previously opposed them, appeared with a

152

D EM 0 ST 11EN E S.

woollen bandage round liis throat, and pretended that
he could not speak, from an attack of quinsy. Some
wag remarked that it must be the silver quinsy. The
people laughed, but were angry. Such is the story.
But, as a fact, Demosthenes did not drop his opposition
to Harpalus. It was on his motion, as we have seen, that
Harpalus was arrested and his treasure sequestrated.

We left the great orator in exile at Troezen. He was
recalled soon after the death of Alexander in 323 B.c.
An attempt was then made once more to rid Greece of
the Macedonian ascendancy. It was finally crushed
by Antipater in the battle of Crannon in 322 b.c. The
conqueror demanded the surrender of the leading anti-
Macedonian orators — Demosthenes, of course, among
them. Athens from this moment ceased to exist as a
free state. A Macedonian garrison was introduced ;
there was a wholesale disfranchisement of citizens,
and a new political constitution was imposed on the
city. Demosthenes did not remain to be a witness of
this degradation. He had been welcomed back to his
native Athens with joyful enthusiasm; now he must
leave her for ever. He took refuge in the little island
of Calauria, off the coast of Argolis. It was here that
he chose to die rather than fall into the hands of the
“exile-hunters,” as the emissaries of Antipater were
called. Within the precincts of an ancient temple of
Neptune, regarded of old as an inviolable sanctuary,
he swallowed poison, retaining in his last moments
sufficient presence of mind to expire outside the sacred
enclosure, to which, in Greek belief, death would have
been a pollution.

CHAPTER XIV.

DEMOSTHENES AT THE EAR.

It lias seemed most convenient not to interrupt our
sketch of the political career of Demosthenes with
any allusions to his purely forensic engagements. He
became, comparatively early hi life — that is to say, when
he was probably under thirty years of age— a very suc¬
cessful pleader in large practice. It may be as well now
to give the reader some idea of the work with which he
was occupied, and of the speeches which in this capa¬
city he was called on to deliver.

At Athens there was no separate and distinct class
answering to our bar. But there were professional
orators and rhetoricians in abundance, who made it
their business to compose speeches for plaintiffs and
defendants. They did not, however, as a rule, make
the speeches themselves ; they merely prepared them
and put them in the hands of their clients, who com¬
mitted them to memory and then addressed the court.
Of course it would often happen that* a man felt him¬
self quite unequal to such an ordeal, and would get an
experienced speaker to plead for him. Most, however,
of the forensic speeches of Demosthenes which have

154

DEMOSTHENES.

come down to us, were written for delivery by the
plaintiff or the defendant in person. Part of the
orator’s art consisted in adapting them to the style and
manner of man his client happened to be. This cir¬
cumstance often gives piquancy to these speeches.
They abound in amusing passages illustrative of
many varieties of Athenian life. We have descrip¬
tive touches of the peculiar ways of the commercial
rogue, of the money-lender, of the fraudulent trustee.
Fortune has been kind in preserving for us something
like thirty orations of Demosthenes, in which these and
kindred figures present themselves to our notice. We
thus peep into the banking-house and the factory, and
see the Athenian citizen bargaining with merchants and
shipowners, or busy with his farm, or making his last
will and testament.

Athens was a city in which lawsuits could not fail
to be plentiful. It was a centre of trade, and a resort
of foreigners from all parts. Then, too, there were the
mines of Laurium along the coast : there were quarries
of marble ; and the adjacent seas were famous for their
fisheries. Athenian manufactures, too, were highly
prized. From the shores of the Black Sea and the
islands of the Aegean there was a good trade in corn,
timber, wine, and wool. Here were all the materials
of commerce, and consequently of litigation. Many
an Athenian citizen was himself in business ; and the
city seems to have swarmed with bustling, enterprising
foreigners who found it convenient to make it their
home. The laAV courts had plenty of work to do — so
much so, indeed, that the “ law’s delay ” appears to have

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR.

155

been as familiar to Athenians as to ourselves. “ Some
people,” says Xenophen, if lie really wrote the treatise
attributed to him on the Athenian republic, “ complain
that a man often waits a twelvemonth at Athens before
he can obtain an audience of the Senate or of the
popular assembly. The fact is, they have so much to
do there that it is impossible to attend to every man’s
application ; some, therefore, are compelled to go away
unheard.” Ill-natured persons, it seems, hinted that
anybody could obtain a hearing by means of a bribe.
Xenophon admits that there may be some truth in this ;
but he adds, speaking from his own knowledge, “ that
for no amount of gold and silver which could be offered
would it be possible for the Athenians to transact all
the business that is brought before them.” Athens, in
fact, was the place to which nearly all causes from the
islands of the ^Egean were brought for trial ; and to
which, too, it was probably best and safest that they
should be brought. Athenian trials were conducted in
a way which to us seems singular, and which at first sight
might appear very unfavourable to the administration
of justice. Causes were heard, as with us, before juries ;
but at Athens a jury commonly numbered 500, and
might number 1000 or even more. It was, in fact,
trial before a popular assembly. There was a president,
but he was not armed with the controlling powers of
an English judge. Everything was left to the jury ;
the law of the case as well as the facts was for them to
decide. To us this may seem the height of absurdity ;
but still at Athens it worked moderately well, and in a
majority of cases we may believe that it seemed at

156

DEMOSTHENES

least substantia] justice. The Athenian juror, it is
true, had not received what we call a legal education ;
but he was naturally critical and sharp-witted, and he
was well practised in the hearing of causes. It is quite
possible that the average decisions of an Athenian jury
may have been as good and satisfactory as those of an
English. There was, of course, a danger of their being
swayed too much at times by political considerations.
But to this we know that an English jury is also liable.
There was another and a worse danger. The popula¬
tion of Athens was comparatively small; and so it
would often happen that plaintiff and defendant, and the
case at issue between them, would be well known to the
jurors. The Athenian pleader was continually appeal¬
ing to the personal knowledge of the jury, and would
in this manner supplement deficiencies in the evidence.
“ He is a scoundrel ; you all know him to be one,” —
this was the sort of language commonly addressed to a
jury at Athens. vEschines, in prosecuting one Timar-
clius, dwells on the notoriety of the man’s guilt and
wickedness — “ Such,” he says, “ is the testimony of the
whole people of Athens, and it is not right that they
should be convicted of perjury.” This strikes us as
a very loose method of procedure. Yet we find it
repeatedly in the speeches of Demosthenes. And it is
what we must expect where the judicial system is made
thoroughly democratic. We must not be surprised at
the savage invective with which the greatest Athenian
orators thought it seemly to interlard their speeches.
Even with us and all our restrictions, advocates contrive
occasionally to indulge in considerable licence, and did

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR.

157

so formerly to a much greater extent ; and it is, perhaps,
a question whether some of the most offensive passages
in Demosthenes and iEschines might not be paralleled
from English pleadings.

Another evil of the Athenian judicial system was the
division of responsibility. One out of 500 or 1000
jurors might very well shelter himself under the excuse,
that if he decided wrongly from carelessness or parti¬
ality, the result would not he much affected. On the

#

other hand, there were advantages which will occur to
the minds of those who are acquainted with the history
of free institutions. Corruption and bribery cannot have
been particularly easy. Nor, again, could anything like
intimidation he well practised. The fact, too, that rich
and poor were brought together to discharge an import¬
ant public function, would have a salutary effect. It
would make them feel that they were members of one
commonwealth, and inspire them with a respect for its
laws. It would call out many of their best sentiments,
as well as sharpen their intellects. Their decisions
may have sometimes been such as we with our modern
ideas cannot approve ; but, on the whole, it may be
assumed that they commanded the confidence of the
people. The Athenian may have had a perverse fond¬
ness for listening to the wranglings of rival plead¬
ers ; but he did his best generally to hear both sides
fairly, and to decide rightly. The jury system, with all
its accompaniments of trained oratory and carefully-
composed speeches, was contemporaneous with the
marvellous development of Athenian literature in the
age of Pericles. To it we are certainly indebted

158

DEMOSTHENES.

for some of the most splendid monuments of human
genius.

Such numerous juries could hardly have been fit to
deal with cases involving a multitude of intricate de¬
tails connected with money accounts or valuations of
property. Matters of this kind were usually referred,
as with us, to a court of arbitration — public arbitra¬
tors being annually appointed. Of these we hear con¬
tinually in the forensic speeches of the Athenian
orators, and we may take it for granted that much of
the law business was disposed of by them. Indeed,
it was the regular practice to submit ordinary private
disputes to arbitrators in the first instance ; but,
as might have been expected in a democratic state,
there was always an appeal from their decisions to a

jlllT-

On the whole, it is not unlikely that justice was
fairly well administered in the Athenian courts. Such,
at all events, seems to have been the opinion of the
Greek world; and we can hardly suppose that that
opinion was without foundation. Some of the draw¬
backs of the system have been already noted, and they
were no doubt considerable. A clever and unscrupulous
advocate might have had a better chance at Athens than
he would have with us. It is, of course, an immense
advantage that a trained lawyer should preside over a
court, and sum up the case, and point out to the jury
the general principles by which they should be guided.
It is probable that the want of this was often felt
at Athens, and led occasionally to unfortunate results.
Still, we may be sure that the average Athenian was

DEMOSTHENES AT THE EAR.

159

a man of intelligence, and perfectly open to reason.
Practice, too, made him tolerably well acquainted with
his country’s laws. It is the greatest mistake to con¬
ceive of Athens as “ a fierce democracy.” Her citizens
were for the most part moderately-cultivated persons,
of a tolerant temper, and willing to obey the laws and
the constitution. A successful Athenian advocate must
have come up to a rather high standard ; and if
his invective was sometimes coarse and offensively
personal, it must have been set off by a certain
amount of wit, and have been accompanied with acute
reasoning.

Much of the litigation at Athens arose out of bot¬
tomry cases — that is, loans of money on the security of
a ship or of its cargo. Business of this kind was trans¬
acted on a great scale ; and as the risk was consider¬
able, the interest charged was high — as much some¬
times as thirty per cent. There seem to have been end¬
less trickeries connected with it. One of Demosthenes’
speeches, for instance, was on behalf of two joint lenders
who had advanced some money on the security of a
wine cargo. Two brothers, merchants of Phaselis in
Pamphylia, were the borrowers. Phaselis, it appears,
had a very bad commercial reputation ; and there were
said to be more actions brought against its traders at
Athens than against all the other traders put together.
In this case Demosthenes’ client stated that the bor¬
rowers of his money had broken their agreement — “ that
they had not shipped the stipulated quantity of wine ;
that they had raised a further loan on the same secu¬
rity ; that they had not purchased a sufficient return

160

DEMOSTHENES.

cargo ; that, on their return, they had not entered the
regular port of Athens, hut had put into a little obscure
harbour known as ‘ Smugglers’ Creek;’ and that, when
the repayment of the loan was demanded, they falsely
represented that the vessel had been wrecked.” Before
the matter was settled, one of the borrowers died, and
his property went to his brother, Lacritus, who, accord¬
ing to the lenders’ statement, had verbally engaged to
see that the loan should be repaid. So Lacritus was
sued for the amount, although very possibly he was
not legally liable, and may merely have been a “ referee ”
for his brother, and have stated, as such, that to the
best of his belief they were solvent. He was a man
of some note, having been a pupil of Isocrates, and
being himself a rather celebrated teacher of rhetoric.
He was, in fact, what the Greeks called a “ sophist.”
On this he seems to have presumed; and he went
about bragging of his connection with “ the great Iso¬
crates.” Demosthenes makes liis client say : “ These
sophists are ‘ a bad lot.’ It is no affair of mine if a
man chooses to be a sophist, and to pay fees to Isocra¬
tes ; but they must not, because they think themselves
clever, be allowed to swindle other people out of their
money. Lacritus does not trust to the justice of his
case ; but he thinks that, as he has learnt oratory, he
shall be able to make you think exactly what he pleases.
Perhaps, as he is so clever, he will undertake to prove
that black is white — that the money was never bor¬
rowed at all — or that it has been paid — or that the
bond is waste paper — or that the borrowers had a right
to use our money as they liked.” It is possible, as has

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR.

161

been supposed, that Demosthenes is really hitting at
Isocrates in his abuse of Lacritus.

In one of his speeches he argues against the right of
a man to take a name already borne by one of his
brothers. The case is a rather singular one. Manti-
theus, the son of Mantias, brings an action against his
half-brother Bceotus for having got himself registered
as Mantitheus. Boeotus was the son of Mantias by a
mistress, herself an Athenian citizen, and so capable,
according to Athenian law, of transmitting citizenship
to her offspring. Every citizen’s child was enrolled or
registered on the citizen-list at an early age, and then
again subsequently on reaching manhood. Boeotus
received his name on the first of these occasions. Be¬
fore the second registration had taken place, his father
died. Disliking the name, which suggested a familiar
Greek proverb, “ like a Boeotian hog,” he contrived on
this second occasion to get himself enrolled under his
brother’s name of Mantitheus. In this manner the
legal designation of the two brothers became the same.
It should be noted that at Athens a citizen was de¬
scribed by his own name, by that of his father, and
that of his parish or township — Attica being divided
into so many townships, or demes, as they were called.
In a comparatively small community this might not
be inconvenient. What, however, Boeotus had done,
could hardly fail to lead to confusion. His half-
brother, in the speech composed for him by Demos¬
thenes, hints that matters would be all the worse, as
Boeotus kept rather questionable company. Unpleasant
mistakes, too, as he points out, would probably arise
a.c.s.s. vol. iv.

L

162

DEMOSTHENES.

out of unpaid debts and appearances in the law courts.
In fact, the son of the lawful wife would often be
credited with the scrapes into which the son of the
mistress was likely to get himself

“You tiresome Boeotus,” says Demosthenes’ client,
who really seems to have been a much-injured man,
“ I would wish you, if possible, to renounce all
your bad ways ; but if that is too much to hope,
pray oblige me to this extent : cease to give your¬
self trouble ; cease to harass me with litigation ; be
content that you have gained a franchise, a property,
a father. Ko one seeks to dispossess you ; nor do
I. If, as you pretend to be a brother, you act
like a brother, people will believe that you are my
kinsman. But if you plot against me, go to law with
me, envy me, slander me, it will be thought that you
have intruded into a strange family, and treat the
members as if they were alien to you. As to me per¬
sonally, however wrong my father may have been in
refusing to acknowledge you, I certainly am innocent.
It was not my business to know who were his sons ;
it was for him to show me whom I was to regard as
brothers. As long as he forebore to acknowledge you,
I held you no kinsman ; ever since he acknowledged
you, I have regarded you as he did. You have had
your portion of the inheritance after my father’s death;
you participate in our religious worship, in our civil
rights — no one excludes you from these. What would
you have ? Whoever hears the name will have to ask
which of us two are meant ; then, if the person means

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR.

163

you, he will reply, ‘ The one whom Mantias was com¬
pelled to adopt/ Do you wish for this 1 ”

We pass to quite a different case. It is a dis¬
pute between two neighbouring Attic farmers.* Their
holdings were in a hilly part of Attica, and were
separated by a public road. It is an action for damages
which the plaintiff, Callicles, alleged that he had sus¬
tained through the obstruction of a water-course, which
carried off the drainage from the surrounding hills.
The defendant’s father had built a wall on his land,
with the view of diverting the water into the road.
It seems that in Attica a proprietor might turn off his
drainage into a public way, to the great detriment, as
may well be supposed, of the country roads, which, in
hilly districts, must at times have been almost impas¬
sable. The effect of the wall in this case was, that
after heavy rains the plaintiff’s farm was overflowed,
as well as the road. For this the plaintiff brought his
action. The defendant, Demosthenes’ client, pleaded
in justification that the wall in question had been law¬
fully erected by his father fifteen years ago ; that no
objection was then raised by the plaintiff’s family;
that the so-called water-course was not really a water¬
course, but was part of his own land, as it was planted
with fruit-trees, and contained an old family burial-
ground. The stream, too, which caused the mischief,
did not come to the defendant from a neighbour’s
farm ; it flowed down the road both above and below
him : the flood which it occasioned in wet weather was
* Speech against Callicles.

164

DEMOSTHENES.

a natural misfortune, from which others had suffered as
well as the plaintiff — only, they had never thought of
going to law about it. The defendant broadly hints
that the plaintiff has an eye to his property, and is
trying to oust him from it by a vexatious action. The
matter in dispute was trifling enough, and the jury
must have been inclined to laugh at the solemnity with
which they were implored to give their best attention
to all the details of the case. “ There is no greater
nuisance” (so the defendant begins his pleading) “ than
a covetous neighbour, which it has been my lot to
meet with. Callicles has set his heart on my land, and
worries me with litigation. First he got his cousin to
claim it from me, but I defeated that claim. I beseech
you all to hear me with attention — not because I am
any speaker, but that you may learn by the facts how
groundless the action is.” After he has explained the
facts, he asks pathetically what he is to do with the
water, if he may not drain it off either into the public
road or into private ground. “ Surely,” he adds, with
a touch of bucolic humour, “ the plaintiff won’t force
me to drink it up ? ” The damage done could not have
been very ruinous, if we may judge from a single
specimen. It appears that the mothers of the two
litigants used to visit each other, as country neighbours ;
and on one occasion, when the defendant’s mother was
calling at the plaintiff’s house, she found the family
plunged in the deepest distress, and apparently crushed
by some more than ordinary calamity. It would seem
that the rustic mind then, as now, was peculiarly
sensitive to the most ludicrously trifling loss, and

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR.

165

delighted in describing it with the most violent exag¬
geration. The injured farmer’s wife, on this occasion,
pointed with tears to four bushels of barley which had
got wet and were being dried, and to a jar of oil,
Which had indeed fallen down, but which was not
damaged. For this they wanted to claim, according to
the defendant, 1000 drachms, or about <£40, byway of
compensation. An Attic farmer, it would seem (like
his English representative), was not likely to suffer
from asking too little. There is something very
characteristic in the following remark, which Demos¬
thenes’ client makes about his opponent : “In going
to law with me,” he says, “ I hold the plaintiff to be
thoroughly wicked and infatuated.”

In another * somewhat interesting case, Demosthenes
pleads for an unfortunate man who had been ejected
from his township, and was thereby in danger of ceasing
to be an Athenian citizen. At Athens, citizenship was
the subject of the strictest scrutiny; and the registers of
the townships were kept with the utmost care. Every
citizen, as has been already noted, had to be twice
registered ; and to insure accuracy, and to exclude
questionable persons, the lists were from time to time
revised. Even with all these precautions, cases of
disputed citizenship not unfrequently occurred. In
the case which we are about to consider, Demosthenes’
client had been struck off the register of his township
on the occasion of a revision. The man’s father had
been taken prisoner during the latter part of the Pelo¬
ponnesian War; and having lived some years “ in for-

* Speech against Eubulides.

166

DEMOSTHE NES.

eign parts,” he spoke Attic rather indifferently. How¬
ever, on his return to Athens, he had resumed his
citizenship ; and transmitted it, without question, as
it is alleged, to his son. He was very poor, and he
and his wife had to eke out a livelihood by the
humblest of occupations. His son, it seems, had
made enemies in his parish, and among them one
Eubulides, against whom he had given evidence in a
court of justice. Eubulides, when he became mayor
of the township, had the registers revised, and con¬
trived to get the man’s name struck off. He managed
this by a sort of trick. The revision of the register
took place at Athens, from which the township was
about five miles distant. A good deal of time was
wasted in making speeches and drawing up resolu¬
tions ; and the case of Demosthenes’ client was taken
last of all. It was now dark, and all but about thirty
members of the township had gone home — and these,
it is said, were in the interest of Eubulides. When
the poor man’s name was called, Eubulides started to
his feet, assailed him with a volley of abuse, and
insisted on a vote of expulsion. It was useless to ask
for an adjournment ; the business was hurried through,
and sixty ballot -balls were found in the box against
him, though it seems that only thirty townsmen were
present. The result was utter ruin to the man. Loss
of citizenship meant social death, and probably slavery.
He makes through his counsel a piteous appeal to the
jury, and says that if their verdict is adverse he shall
commit suicide, that he may at least have the satis¬
faction of being buried by his relatives in his native

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR

167

country. “ I have been shamefully treated by this
Eubulides ” — so he begins ; “ and I pray you, consider¬
ing the great importance of the present trial, and the
disgrace and ruin which attend conviction, to hear me,
as you have my opponent, in silence.” Further on in
his speech he touches on his poverty, and the humble
way in which his family maintain themselves.

“We confess that we sell ribbons, and live not in the
way we could wish. We are so low down in the world
that our opponent may go out of his way to abuse us.
It seems to me that our trafficking in the market-place
is the strongest proof of the falsity of this man’s
charges. My mother, he says, sold ribbons in the
market-place. Well, if she was an alien, they should
have inspected the market tolls, and shown whether
she paid the alien’s toll, and to what country she
belonged. If she was a slave, the person who bought
her, or the person who sold her, should have been
called to give evidence. Then he has said she was a
nurse. We do not deny she was, in those evil days*
when all our people were badly off. But you will find
many women who are citizens taking children to nurse.
Of course, if we had been rich, we should not have
sold ribbons, or have been at all in distress. But
what has that to do with my descent 1 Pray do not
scorn the poor (their poverty is a sufficient misfortune
for them), much less those who try to get an honest
livelihood. Poverty compels free men to do many
mean and servile acts, for which they deserve to be

* The last years of the Peloponnesian War.

168

DEMOS Til EXES.

pitied rather than to he ruined. They tell me that many
women, citizens by birth, have become both nurses
and wool-dressers and vintagers, owing to the misfor¬
tunes of our country at that period. I have confidence
in my case, and I come as an appellant to your tribunal
for protection. I know that the courts of law are
more powerful not only than my fellow-townsmen,
but even than the Council of the popular Assembly ;
and justly so — for your verdicts are in every respect
most righteous.”

He concludes his address to the jury with the threat
of suicide already mentioned.

One more of these cases must suffice. It is
an amusing one — an action, as we should say, for
assault and battery. There were, it seems, occasional
outbursts of rowdyism even at refined Athens, and the
police were not always “ on the spot ” to repress them.
Some of the “ fast ” young men about town formed
themselves into clubs — like the “ Mohock Club” of the
last century, whose lawless proceedings are the subject
of one of the numbers of the ‘ Spectator.’ * “ An

outrageous ambition (as the ‘ Spectator ’ says) of doing
all possible hurt to their fellow-creatures was the great
cement of their assemblies, and the only qualification
required in the members.” There was a club at Athens
which called itself the Triballi, the name of one of the
wildest and most savage tribes of Thrace. The mem¬
bers of this delightful fraternity used to commit all
manner of horrid and indecent outrages on inoffensive

* No. 324

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR.

169

citizens as they were taking the evening air or return¬
ing home from parties. One Conon and his sons
specially distinguished themselves. Their victim on
one occasion retained Demosthenes for his counsel.
They had all been on foreign military service together,
and it was then that the practical jokes and annoy¬
ances were begun of which Demosthenes’ client com¬
plains. Conon and his set would drink all day after
lunch ; and so by dinner-time they were only lit for
drunken frolics. “ At first,” the plaintiff says, “ they
played tricks on his servants ; at last on himself and
his party. They would pretend that our servants
annoyed them with smoke in cooking, and were saucy ;
then they beat them, and played all sorts of dirty,
brutal jokes on them. We expressed our disgust;
and when they insulted us, we all went in a body to
the general, who gave them a severe reprimand.” In
this manner a very sore feeling grew up ; and when
they all returned to Athens, the assault took place
which was the ground of the action.

“ When I had got back to Athens,” the plaintiff
says, “ I was taking a walk one evening in the
market-place with a friend of my own age, when
Ctesias, Conon’s son, passed us, very much intoxi¬
cated. Seeing us, he made an exclamation like
a drunken man muttering something indistinctly
to himself, and went on his way. There was a
drinking - party near, at the house of Pamphilus,
the fuller. Conon and many others were there.
Ctesias got them to leave the party and go with him

170

DEMOSTHENES.

to the market-place. We were near the Leocorium”
(a small temple) “ when we encountered them. As we
came up, one of them rushed on my friend and held
him. Conon and another tripped up my heels, and
threw me into the mud, and jumped on me, and
kicked me with such violence that my lip was cut
through and my eye closed up. In this plight they
left me, unable to rise or speak. As I lay I heard
them use dreadful language, some of which I should
he sorry to repeat to you. One thing you shall hear.
It proves Conon’s malice, and that he was the ring¬
leader in the affair. He crowed, mimicking fighting-
cocks when they have won a battle; and his companions
bade him clap his elbows against his sides, like wings.
I was afterwards found by some persons who came
that way, and carried home without my cloak, which
these men had carried off. When they got to the
door, my mother and the maid-servants began crying
and bewailing. I was carried with some difficulty to
a bath ; they washed me all over, and then showed me
to the doctor.”

It seems to have struck Demosthenes that possibly
some of the jury would be inclined to laugh at this
somewhat ludicrously pathetic picture.

“ Will you laugh,” he makes his client say, “ and
let Conon off, because he says we are a band of merry
fellows who, in our adventures and amours, strike and
break the neck of any one we please 1 I trust
not. Hone of you would have laughed if you had
been present when I was dragged and stripped and
kicked, and carried to the home which I had left

DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR.

171

strong and well ; and my mother rushed out, and the
women cried and wailed as if a man had died in the
house, so that some of the neighbours sent to ask what
was the matter.”

Conon and his associates may well have been a
terror to peaceable citizens, if we may trust the fol¬
lowing little sketch of their proceedings : —

“ Many of you know the set. There’s the grey¬
headed man, who all day long has a solemn frown on
his brows, and wears a coarse mantle and single-soled
shoes. But when they get together, they stick at no
wickedness or disgraceful conduct. These are their
fine and spirited sayings : ‘ Shan’t we bear witness for
one another?’ ‘Doesn’t it become friends and com¬
rades?’ ‘What will he bring against you that you’re
afraid of?’ ‘Some men say they saw him beaten?’
We’ll say, ‘ You never touched him.’ ‘ Stripped of
his coat?’ We’ll say, ‘They began.’ ‘His lip was
sewed up?’ We’ll say, ‘Your head was broken.’
Remember,” solemnly adds the plaintiff, “ I pro¬
duce medical evidence ; they do not — for they can get
no evidence against me but what is furnished by
themselves.”

It is to be hoped that the jury did not laugh, but
were persuaded by Demosthenes to make an example
of such offenders. Blackguardism could hardly go
further than to rob a man of his cloak, in addition to
beating and kicking him. The Athenian rowdy, if
Conon and his set were fair and average types of the
genus, certainly deserved little mercy.

CONCLUSION.

Demosthenes is one of those men concerning whom,
both as a statesman and an orator, there cannot be
much difference of opinion. As a statesman, he is
unanimously eulogised by modern historians of the
first rank — such as Thirl wall, Grote, and Curtius. Every
one who sees anything to esteem and admire in old
Greek life, must esteem and admire Demosthenes. His
political career was a consistent one. He clung to and
worked for one idea. That idea was a free and inde¬
pendent Greece, of which his own Athens had, morally
and intellectually, the right to be head. It was not,
as we have seen, the view of Isocrates ; nor was it after¬
wards that of the historian Polybius. Both these men
refused to believe that Greece could any longer be
what she had been. Both were honest and con¬
scientious thinkers ; but we can never have quite the
same feeling towards the man who is inclined to
despair of a great cause as we have towards him who
will persist in hoping against hope. It was this which
Demosthenes did through life amid many discourage¬
ments ; and this gives him a moral greatness which we
believe posterity will always recognise. Such a man

CONCLUSION.

173

would be sure in his public speeches to appeal to con¬
science, to the moral sense, and to a lofty patriotism.
The appeals may have often fallen dead ; but he could
not help believing that there was still a spirit in his
countrymen which, if rightly invoked, might yet be
roused, and stir them to the deeds of their forefathers.
This was the faith of Demosthenes. This it was which
made him dislike and distrust even the noble specula¬
tions and philosophy of Plato. These, he felt — as many
an Englishman might have felt — would tend to carry
Athenians away from the practical sphere of politics
into a shadowy realm of ideas. Athens, he thought,
ought still to assert her greatness and dignity, and he
had something in regard to her of the feeling which
Virgil has expressed in the well-known line —

“ Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.” *

As an orator he has, almost without question, been
unrivalled. Lord Brougham, in his dissertation on the
oratory of the ancients, confidently pronounces this
opinion, and we are not aware that there is or has been
any dissent from it. His eloquence was the joint pro¬
duct of natural genius and elaborate study. Quintilian
says, on the whole truly, that Cicero owed more to
study, and Demosthenes to nature. Still, as we have
seen, Demosthenes did his best to perfect his great
natural gifts by the most assiduous application. His
industry was prodigious. He left behind him a
collection of exordia , or introductions to speeches,
which it seems that Cicero had by him. He was con¬
tinually revising his words and phrases. All his
* “ Thine, Roman, be the claim to rule the world.”

174

DEMOSTHENES.

speeches, as far as we know, were the result of careful
preparation. His speaking exhibited great varieties.
His opponent is often scathed with an eloquence not
unlike that of the late Lord Derby, when his
words were inspired by a strong moral indignation.
Some of his speeches remind us of the subtle and
ingenious reasoning of Mr Gladstone. Such is the
speech we have noticed, in which he argues for the
repeal of the law of Leptines. In others, again — the
Olynthiac orations especially, and that for the Crown
against iEschines — we have passages which recall to our
memories the impassioned fervour of some of the most
eloquent speeches of Mr Bright. There is the same
impressive appeal to the human conscience, and to the
worth and grandeur of freedom. At the same time,
he was a most dexterous master of his art. James
Mill used to point out to his famous son “ how, first,
Demosthenes said everything important to his purpose
at the exact moment when he had brought the minds
of his hearers into the state most fitted to receive it ;
second, how he insinuated, gradually and indirectly,
ideas which would have roused opposition if directly
presented.” Generally, he was a thoroughly success¬
ful speaker, winning many a triumph in the Assembly

and the law court, and finally discomfiting his able

\

rival. And it must indeed have been an inspiriting
recollection to him when he looked back to Chaeroneia,
where, thanks to his eloquence, Athenians and Thebans
fought side by side in the cause of Greece.

END OF DEMOSTHENES.

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141324

Author Demsthenes

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